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COMPANION / mp^H 



INDUSTRIES 
OF TO DAY 





Class ^T_._^J_ 

Copyright N^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSITS 




Making Maple Sugar 



YOUTH'S COMPANION SERIES 



INDUSTRIES OF TO-DAY 



EDITED BY" ^_ 

M. A. L. LANE. 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

1904 



LIBRARY 


of CONGRESS] 


Two Cepies 


Received 


FEB 


2 


1904 


Jv Copyright Entry 
CLASS ^ XXc. No, 


97/20 
'COPY S 



-VA 



THE YOUTH'S COMPANION 
SERIES 

GE0GI^4r^lCAl READERS 

, , \ TH5I Jwi'l^E WORLD 
NORTHERN EUROPE 

;" yU^pERl^yNNY SKIES 

TOWARD THE RISING SUN 
STRANGE LANDS NEAR HOME 

THE WORLD'S PROGRESS READERS 

TRIUMPHS OF SCIENCE 
INDUSTRIES OF TO-DAY 



Copyright, 1904, by Perry Mason Company 



CONTENTS 



Cod and Cod Fishing . 

Ranch Life 

Peanut Growing . . . 

A Winter Harvest . . 

California Raisin Making 

A Crop of Cranberries 

A Maple-Sugar Camp . 

Among the Pines . . . 

How Matches are made 
^How Soap is made . . 
""How Pins are made . . 
y The Use of Natural Gas 

Adobe and its Uses . . 

The Making of Fireworks 

In an Ice Factory . . 

A Boston Market . . 

The Morning Paper . . 



. Granville B. FutJiam 
. Heleji Hunt Jackson 
. George B. Spear 
. J. E. Chamberlin 
. Elias Lo7igley . 
. Alice Brown 
. Ricth Buss . 
. Mrs. H. G. Rowe 
. G. A. Stockwell 
. Peter H. Walsh 
. Harry Flatt . 
. Kii'k Mwiroe . 



Sarah Winter Kellogg 98 



. Edward Marshall 
. Thomas C. Harris 
. Alice Brown . . 
. Harold Frederic . 



Page 

I 

12 

19 

27 

37 
45 
54 

59 
68 

77 
84 
90 



105 
III 
119 
127 



[V] 




INDUSTRIES OF TO-DAY 



^OD AND COD FISHING 

"How strange," thought I when 
as a boy I visited the Representa- 
tives' Hall in the State House at 
Boston, "how strange that above the 
heads of the wise men assembled 
in this hall should hang a huge 
codfish ! " 

But it does not seem strange at all when we 
recall the circumstances of the founding of the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

There were then no cattle grazing among the 
foothills of the Rocky Mountains, no sheep on 
Texan plains, no wheat or corn on Western 
prairies, no trains loaded with meats and grain 
rushing night and day toward the seaboard, and 
no vessels freighted with luxuries from every 
clime hastening to the Atlantic ports. A little 
corn gathered from newly broken soil among the 

[I] 



Industries of To-Day 



stumps of the clearings, clams from the sands, 
and fish from the deep, — these constituted 
almost the only subsistence of the colonies along 
the shore, where alone settlements had been made. 

Of the many fish which then abounded, the 
cod was the most abundant and most highly 
prized; and so to the Pilgrim and the Puritan 
the codfish was a memorial of providential care, 
as was to the Israelites the golden pot of manna 
which found a sacred place beside the ark of the 
covenant. 

It was very early discovered that the waters 
along the shores of Newfoundland and the adja- 
cent Banks abounded with cod, and they were 
visited by the French as early as 1504, and by 
the Spaniards in 15 17. Nearly three hundred 
and fifty years ago the English, under the lead of 
Sir Francis Drake, began to frequent the Banks, 
and during all the years since fleets of vessels 
from these and other nations have braved the 
perils of fog and storm in order to secure a 
supply of this valuable sea food. 

Bartholomew Gosnold, the first navigator 
known to have visited New England waters, 
explored its coasts in 1602, and on reaching the 

E2] 



Cod and Cod Fishing 



sandy cape of Massachusetts found the fish so 
abundant that he " pestered his deck " with them, 
and was led to bestow upon the peninsula the 
name " Cape Cod," which it still bears. 

About 1 6 14 the famous Captain John Smith 
was elated by his catch on the coast of Maine, at 
the Isles of Shoals, and around the headlands of 
Cape Ann. In writing of it he says, " What 
sport doth yield a more pleasing content and 
less hurt or charge, than angling with a hook, 
and crossing the sweet air, from isle to isle, over 
the silent streams of a calm sea ! " 

The Shoals were considered a most desirable 
place for a station, since here the men were safe 
from the prowling Indians as they were not on 
the mainland, where, however, by 1640, fishing 
plantations had been established at Pemaquid, 
Cas,co Bay, Cape Porpoise, and Piscataqua. 

The cod along our shores differ a little from 
those on the Banks, being of another species. 
They are not migratory fish, like the mackerel, 
but live in great colonies, having only a limited 
range. Although they may live in very near 
waters, it is said that they do not intermingle 
with those of a neighboring colony. The fish 

[3] 



Industries of To-Day 



of each has characteristics which distinguish it 
from those of another. 

In general it may be said that the cod is of a 
greenish brown, when fresh from the w^ater, and 
is spotted wdth reddish yellow. It can be dis- 
tinguished from the haddock, with which it often 
feeds, by its white lateral hne. The line on the 
haddock's side is always black. In the upper 
jaw there are four rows of sharp teeth; in the 
lower, one row. The scales are small and the 
eyes large. There are ten fins, three of which 
are upon the back. 

I have seen a codfish that weighed nearly one 
hundred pounds, and have heard of one caught 
near by that weighed more than one hundred 
and fifteen pounds ; but one of eighty pounds is 
considered a large one even by fishermen, and an 
amateur will go wild over one of twenty. Those 
caught upon the Banks seldom reach eighty 
pounds, being of a smaller species. 

The cod is a deep-sea fish, as is indicated by 
a little appendage hanging from its lower jaw, 
called a "barbule." It finds its food at the 
bottom, upon sand banks and around sunken 
ledges usually at some distance from the shore, 

[4] 



Cod and Cod Fishing 



although in cold weather it may sometimes be 
taken by fishing from the rocks. 

As the season advances the cod resorts to 
deeper water, for it is strictly a cold-water fish. 
Its food consists of worms, sand eels, crabs and 
other small shellfish, but it is not over-particular 
as to what it swallows. A great variety of arti- 
cles has been taken from the stomachs of cod, — 
straw, stones, rubber balls, jackknives, snuffboxes, 
nutmegs, old iron, glass, and broken crockery. 

The Indians caught fish with lines made of 
bark and with hooks of bone. Formerly all cod 
w^ere caught by means of hand lines, and some 
fish are still taken in this way, especially in the 
autumn, when they are abundant. Most of them, 
however, are now taken by trawls, which were 
introduced here about i860 and were first used 
by the French. 

A trawl consists of a line about three thousand 
feet in length, to which are attached short ones 
about thirty-six inches long, on each of which 
is a hook. The short lines are placed about six 
feet apart, so that each trawl has about five hun- 
dred hooks. Attached to each end of the line 
by a rope is a buoy, sometimes only an empty 

[5] 



Industries of To-Day 



powder keg or a mackerel kit. In the head of 
the buoy is a pole three feet long, upon which is 
a small flag to attract the attention of the owner 
when in search of it. To each end of the line 
is fastened a small anchor. 

The hooks are usually baited with squid, her- 
ring, or other small fish. Each fish will bait four 
hooks. If small fish cannot be obtained, clams 
are used. Squid bait is considered the best, and 
as great quantities are caught in weirs on Cape 
Cod, many vessels resort thither in summer to 
secure a supply for their trips. 

To bait a trawl requires from an hour and a 
half to two hours. When it is ready it is placed 
in a tub made of a half barrel. The long line is 
coiled up in the center, and the bait lies next the 
sides of the tub. One man uses from two to six 
trawls, which are often set in the afternoon and 
visited very early the following morning, and per- 
haps once or twice more in the course of the day. 

The process is somewhat as follows. When 
one buoy is reached the end of the trawl to 
which it is attached is drawn up, and then hook 
after hook is examined and the fish are taken 
off. By means of trawls a man may catch more 

[6] 



Cod and Cod Fishing 



in a single night than by a week's hard work with 
hand Unes. 

Of course the fish are not all cod. This is a 
hake, that a haddock, the next a dogfish, and the 
next a hahbut. The unexpected is quite likely to 




come to the surface upon one of the many hooks. 
It may be some hideous fish, or some uncouth 
object which has long been lying in its oozy bed. 
I have described trawl fishing as conducted by 
one or two men in a dory at from one to five 
miles from the shore. 

[7] 



Industries of To-Day 



Small schooners make trips off shore to a dis- 
tance of from twenty to a hundred miles. They 
take a supply of ice as well as of bait, and run 
in to Boston or some other port once or twice a 
week to sell their fish to dealers who supply New 
England. 

Larger schooners visit Georges Banks, the 
Western Banks, or those of Newfoundland, and 
may be gone three or four weeks, bringing their 
fish to market on ice ; or they may be gone from 
four to six months, dressing and salting their 
fish on board. 

When a schooner arrives at port with a " fare of 
fish," they are taken out with pitchforks, washed, 
and, when the weather is suitable, spread upon 
flakes to dry. The flakes are frames covered 
with triangular slats, and are about seven feet 
wide and raised three feet above the ground. 
At Provincetown they may be seen not only 
upon the wharves, but also in all vacant places 
between the houses, and even in the front door- 
yards, so that, instead of the fragrance of flowers, 
the smell of codfish regales the passer-by. 

Great care is required to dry fish properly. 
Clear weather and westerly winds are most to 

[8] 



Cod and Cod Fishing 



be desired. Foggy weather spoils them, and a 
hot sun mehs, or, as the fishermen say, " nashes " 
them. To prevent this, screens made of cotton 
cloth are often placed eighteen inches above them 
as a protection from the sun's direct rays. 

" Going on your own hook " had its origin in 
the custom of keeping an account of each man's 
catch, and the distribution of the profits of the 
voyage accordingly. 

Great economy is now exercised in saving all 
parts of the fish. The flesh, of course, is used 
for food. The oil from the livers is sold as medi- 
cine or used in manufactures. The air bladders, 
or sounds as they are called, are dried with care, 
and in cold weather are converted into isinglass ; 
and there is now a great demand for the heads, 
skins, and even bones, which are used in making 
fish glue. This refuse, formerly of little value, 
now commands a good price. 

To secure bait for the Bankers, a fleet of ves- 
sels sails about the last of November for New- 
foundland, where they trade with local fishermen 
for herring, which are well frozen. They return 
home in January or February, so that they may 
supply the fleet which starts in February or 

[9] 



Industries of To-Day 



March. Large quantities of herring are also 
obtained from New Brunswick. Without this 
foreign supply the extent of our fisheries would 
be very much reduced, and even now it is too 
often the case that when fish are abundant there 
is no bait, and when bait is plenty there are no 
fish. A crew of eight men on a three weeks' trip 
would take about twelve thousand herring. 

The perils of the trawler are even greater than 
those of the soldier upon the battlefield. There 
is danger even in shore fishing, as a sudden lurch 
of the dory may throw its occupant into the icy 
cold water. Clad in heavy fishing boots, thick 
coat, and reefer, the fisherman has little hope 
of rescue, unless another boat should chance to 
be near. 

Even greater is the danger on the Banks. 
The trawler is often four or five miles from the 
vessel, when suddenly the thick fog closes in 
upon him and he is lost, perhaps to row for days 
in hopeless search, without food or drink or com- 
pass. He may die of hunger or exhaustion, or 
perhaps be picked up at length by some passing 
vessel and taken to some distant port. Although 
horns are blown in warning, a whole crew may 



Cod and Cod Fishing 



be sunk in an instant by some steamer on its 
way across the ocean. 

Fierce, too, are the storms which sweep the 
Banks; the wind is bitter cold, deck and mast 
and sails are clad in ice, and many a crew is 
never heard of more. In March, 1766, nineteen 
vessels sailed from Gloucester for the Grand 
Banks. In a single storm two of these were 
wrecked on the rocks of Nova Scotia, seven 
foundered at sea with all on board, and several 
others were so disabled as to be compelled to 
return. Gn the night of February 24, 1862, fif- 
teen vessels from the same port were wrecked. 

Previous to the Revolution, Marblehead was 
the chief fishing port, and her men were on the 
deck of every ship which met the British men-of- 
war. Gloucester, now the largest fishing port in 
the world, gave a third of her sons to death in 
their country's defense in the same great strug- 
gle. Nor were these men of the sea less prompt 
to answer the call of the nation in later wars. 
Let her foster this great industry and protect 
the brave men who, amid hardships and perils, 
go forth to gather harvests from the deep. 

Granville B. Putnam. 



RANCH LIFE 

The word " ranch " is a contraction of the 
Spanish word rancho^ which means a hut cov- 
ered with branches or thatch for herdsmen, or a 
farming estabhshment for the raising of horses 
and cattle. 

On the plains and in the Southwest the word 
has come to be applied indiscriminately to all 
farms, whether the land be used for grazing or 
for agricultural purposes. 

The word has a seductive sound. It suggests 
beautiful and picturesque surroundings, green 
trees, running streams, and a life of freedom and 
plenty; and I shall not soon forget the dis- 
appointment with which I first looked on a 
Colorado ranch. 

I saw a small, unpainted house a story and a 
half high ; a few outbuildings made of logs in the 
roughest manner; no fences, not a tree in sight, 
not a bush; chips and other litter all around; 
tin cans lying about in abundance, — a most 

[12] 



Ranch Life 



desolate-looking spot, with discomfort and depri- 
vation staring one in the face at every point. 

-This was a cattle ranch. The proprietor of it 
owns several thousand head of cattle. He him- 
self lives in a good house in Colorado Springs. 

This is the most comfortable way to keep a 
ranch: put a man, or men, in charge of it, and 
live yourself where you please, visiting the ranch 
often enough to see that things are in order. 
But of course this method is not always possible. 

The principal grazing sections in Colorado are 
along the Platte, the Arkansas, and the Repub- 
lican rivers, but the plains in all sections are 
thus utilized. Some of the parks lying high up 
among the mountains also afford fine ranges. 

To the eye of a stranger nothing could look 
more unsuited for grazing than the bare brown 
stretches of the Colorado plains. But there is a 
sweetness and nutrition in the low, dried grasses 
which is wonderful. No hay that is made can 
compare with these grasses dried where they 
stand and ready to be nibbled all winter. 

To a stranger nothing could seem more improb- 
able than that cattle should thrive, running all 
winter long .unsheltered, uncared for, in a country 

[13] 



Industries of To-Day 



where the mercury frequently falls at night to 
zero and below, and where snow often covers the 
ground to the depth of several inches. But the 
facts show that the cattle do thrive under these 
conditions. 

They are very thin in the spring, and excep- 
tionally severe snowstorms in March or April 
will kill off some of the feeblest; but at the end 
of the year they make, on the whole, fair returns, 
and there are many cattlemen in the state who 
are growing steadily rich. 

The same is true of the sheepmen, though this 
business is subject to greater risks and fluctu- 
ations. When heavy snowstorms come sheep 
are helpless; they are silly also, and sometimes 
in a single flock hundreds will be stifled to death 
by trampling one another underfoot in haste to 
get the food which has been thrown down for 
them when they have been driven in after a long 
storm. 

One winter in Colorado was exceptionally 
severe, and thousands of sheep perished in the 
snow. The sheepmen took warning and put up 
sheds on a large scale. It would seem a simple 
matter of humanity, as well as policy, to provide 

[14] 



Ranch Life 



them* Cattle can run before a storm and, it is 
said, will often run forty miles to escape one ; but 
the poor little sheep are too clumsy and slow; 
they are soon snowed in and under. 

Life on the larger and more remote ranches 
is lonely and monotonous to a degree which, it 
must be admitted, can hardly be wholesome for 




'11 



M'4.^.>»||| 



\ ^r 



either mind or body. The daily life of a herder 
of sheep, for instance, seems but one shade above 
that of the sheep themselves. He takes his flock 
out at daybreak, stands or lies still, watching 
them while they feed, drives them back to the 
ranch at night, cooks his own supper, washes the 
dishes, and goes to bed at nine o'clock, too tired 
to keep awake longer. This routine is varied by 
an interval of very hard work in the shearing 

[15] 



Industries of To-Day 



season and during the weeks when the lambs are 
born in the spring. 

If the ranch is near a town of size, he goes, 
perhaps once a week, to that town to buy what he 
needs. But the larger ranches are all remote from 
towns and must necessarily be so in order to 
secure sufficient range for large flocks and herds. 

For a ranch sixty, seventy, or a hundred miles 
distant from its center of supplies, purchases must 
be made by wholesale two or three times a year, 
and the ranchmen have no intercourse with the 
world except at these times, or when chance 
travelers pass by their place. A primitive and 
genuine hospitality prevails on most ranches ; all 
travelers feel free to stop at them, and by no 
means the least of the fatigues of the ranchman's 
life is preparing meals at any time for as many 
as happen to come. 

These are some of the drawbacks of ranch life. 
On the other hand, there are advantages by no 
means to be scorned : open air, year in and year 
out; freedom from all conventional and trouble- 
some customs ; independence^ and the indefinable 
exhilaration which almost all men find in a wild 
and untrammeled life. 

[i6] 



Ranch Life 



The cattlemen for a great part of the year have 
Httle to do except to keep their buildings in 
order and attend to the few animals they keep 
with them. When the cattle are to be gathered 
together, branded and counted, or driven from 
one range to another, then the cattleman rides, 
day after day, as madly as a Bedouin in the 
desert. 

There is probably no better riding than can be 
seen at the sum- 
mer round-ups, 







where vast herds of cattle 
have been gradually driven 
in from their ranges and 
collected in a dense mass in some open place 
where the owners may pick out their respective 
cattle. Any cow or steer found unbranded then 
may be taken possession of by any one. Such 
cattle are called mavericks, and there are more 
of them than would be supposed; they might 
be called Ishmaelites among cattle. 

1^7] 



Industries of To-Day 



As the ranchman prospers, he adds building 
after building to his ranch. You may read the 
history of many ranches in the successive stages 
of buildings, from the roughest of log cabins, 
which was at first the dwelling and is now merely 
an outhouse for tools, implements, etc., up to the 
two-story wooden house, possibly clapboarded, 
which was at first the dream and is now the 
home in which the ranchman's wife takes pride, 
and in which you will find one or more carpeted 
rooms, a rocking-chair or two, and a newspaper 
or magazine. 

, I know one ranch, a sheep ranch, in which 
the record runs farther back than the log house ; 
it runs back to a dugout, a sort of compromise 
between a cave and a huge oblong ant-hill, in 
w^hich the resolute sheepman lived, or rather 
burrowed, for more than a year, when he began 
his ranch life, like David, with a few sheep in the 
wilderness. Now he is the owner of two ranches 
and many thousand sheep. 

Helen Hunt Jackson. 



[■8] 



PE/VNUT GROWING 

Many people would mistake a field of growing 
peanuts for a field of clover. During the Civil 
War the boys in blue often ran with eagerness 
into clover fields in search of peanuts, and could 
not be convinced of their mistake until they had 
pulled up a considerable number of the roots, 
and had been roundly laughed at by their more 
knowing comrades. 

The peanut, sometimes called ground pea or 
ground nut, is known in the Southern States as 
the pindar and goober. It is generally believed 
to be a native of Africa, where it is the principal 
food of some of the Congo tribes ; but four or 
five species of the nut are found growing wild 
in Brazil. 

In the United States it is raised principally in 
Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and has 
been more recently cultivated in California. 

The culture of the peanut is not difficult. 
Land suited to the raising of corn or melons is 

[19] 



Industries of To- Day 



generally selected, and care is taken that there 
be nothing in the ground that would stain the 
shells. 

Planting time begins when the danger to plants 
from frost has passed. The ground is plowed 
five or six inches deep, and then harrowed. The 
nuts are taken from the pod without breaking 

their skins, are planted 
two or three together in 
rows about three feet 
apart and twenty inches 
from hill to hill, and are 
covered with two inches 
of earth. Five pecks of 
^ shelled seed are needed 

for an acre. The work of planting was formerly 
done by hand, but it is now done by a machine, 
with which one man can plant six to eight acres 
a day. 

When in a short time the vine is eight or ten 
inches long and begins to blossom, it is covered 
with an inch of soil, care being taken to leave 
the tip end uncovered. The vines blossom pro- 
fusely with small yellow flowers, and as the flower 
fades away a sharp-pointed stem grows out from 

.[20] 




Peanut Growing 



its base, turns downward, and buries itself in the 
ground ; on the end of the stem a thick-shelled 
pod forms, and enlarges rapidly. 

All the care that is necessary after the stem 
returns to the ground is to keep the land free 
from weeds. The cultivation consists in running 
a plow between the rows. After the plants have 




fallen over, they cover the earth so thickly as to 
smother all other growth. 

In October, when the nuts are ripe, the farmer 
loosens the earth by running a plow under each 
row to cut off the main roots and throw out the 
pods. Then he pulls up the vines, to which the 
nuts adhere, and turns them over to dry. He 
performs this work only in pleasant weather and 
when the ground is dry. 

[21] 



Industries of To-Day 



After the vines have lain in the sun for a day^ 
which is generally a sufficient time for drying 
them, the grower stacks them around a stake 
about seven or eight feet high. The vines 
remain in stack from three to five weeks, after 
which the nuts are picked off, placed in sacks, 
and shipped to market. A vine under favorable 
conditions bears more than a hundred nuts, and 
the yield per acre averages forty bushels. 

Most of the Virginia and North Carolina crop, 
which is about two thirds of the whole crop of 
the country, is marketed in Norfolk and Peters- 
burg, Virginia. In each of these cities are fac- 
tories where the nuts are bought as they are 
delivered by the farmer. The nuts as they 
appear at this stage, with earth and their stems 
still clinging to them, are hardly to be recognized 
as the bright nuts we afterwards see on the corner 
stand. 

To polish them and to remove the earth and 
stems, the nuts are scoured in large iron cylin- 
ders, from which they pass through blast fans, 
in which a strong current of air separates the; 
fully developed nuts having sound kernels from 
those imperfectly filled, and from empty pods. 

[22] 



Peanut Growing 



The sound nuts fall through the fan upon long 
picking tables, where those which are discolored 
are taken out, and the bright ones are passed 
on into sacks which will each hold about one 
hundred pounds of nuts. Each sack is marked 
with the brand which indicates the grade of its 
contents. 

The dark and the partially filled nuts are 




shelled, and the kernels are used by confec- 
tioners in making peanut candy. The work of 
picking over and separating the nuts is performed 
by little girls, about twenty of whom are employed 
at e^ery table. 

[23] 



Industries of To-Day 



Three varieties of peanuts are grown in America, 
— the white, the red, and the Spanish. The 
white, which is the most important variety, has 
two kernels with pink skins ; its vine spreads 
along the ground, unlike that of the red variety, 
which grows more upright and in a bunch. 

The pod of the red nut holds three and some- 
times four kernels, and has a deep red skin. The 

Spanish is a much 
smaller nut, with a 
lighter skin and 
milder flavor than 
either of the others. 
The entire crop is 
shelled, and used 
especially in that rich confection known as 
nougat. 

The history of the competition between the 
home product and the imported peanut is inter- 
esting and gives one some idea of the importance 
of the peanut trade. In 1872, and for several 
years previous, there were annually imported into 
New York a half million bushels of peanuts, the 
greater part of which came from Africa, and the 
rest from Spain. » 

[24] 




Peanut Growing 



The American farmers gradually awakened to 
a perception of the profits to be made by raising 
the nuts. Melon patches were turned into pea- 
nut fields, and in 1878 the seed of the Spanish 
nut was planted in Virginia. The product was 
found to equal that of the foreign nut, and as it 
cost two or three cents a pound less to market 
the crop, it was not long before the imported 
nut was driven from the market. At present 
Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee count 
goober raising as one of their chief industries. 

The peanut is a more useful product than 
people in general think it to be. We all know 
how eagerly it is sought after to help boys enjoy 
a baseball match or a circus ; but its use in the 
roasted form by no means measures the extent 
of its value or the vari- 
ety of th^ uses to which 
it is put. 

The nuts contain 
from forty-two to fifty 
per cent of a nearly colorless, bland, fixed oil, 
which resembles olive oil and is used for similar 
purposes. This oil is principally employed in the 
manufacture of the finer grades of soap. 

[25] 




Industries of To-Day 



In 1883 Virginia began to manufacture peanut 
flour, which makes a peculiarly palatable biscuit, 
and North Carohna has long made pastry of 
pounded peanuts. It is also eaten for dessert, 
and it is roasted as a substitute for coffee. 

The peanut is very nutritious. The negroes 
use it in very many places in making porridge 
or custard, and prepare from it a beverage. The 
vine forms a fodder as good as clover hay, and 
hogs fatten on what they find on the fields after 
the crop has been gathered. 

George B. Spear. 




[26] 



A WINTER HARVEST 

The traveler who, on a pleasant midsummer 
day, ascends the Kennebec River in Maine for 
the first time, is likely to be much interested in 
the signs, which appear as soon as his boat has 
passed from salt water into fresh, of a great 
industry which evidently surpasses all others in 
local importance. 

At frequent intervals upon the Kennebec are 
seen great wooden structures. Some of these 
have wide-spreading gambrel or curb roofs, and 
are picturesque objects in the landscape ; others 
are simply vast barracks of rough planks and 
boards, unpleasant and disfiguring to the shores 
of the broad river. All of these are ice houses, 
and they are the depositories of the great ice 
harvest of the Kennebec. 

In midsummer scarcely less than in the latter 
half of winter these great houses are scenes of 
activity. Schooners are brought to their very 
doors by tugs, and there are laden with great 

[27] 



Industries of To-Day 



blocks of clear, blackish-green ice. From each 
of the ice houses a long and slightly inclined 
plane leads down to the light wooden wharf 
where the vessel lies; and down this smooth 
incline a continuous line of blocks of ice, 
urged on by men and boys with picks, is 
descending. 

The Kennebec River is a great center of the 
ice-cutting business because, joined with a winter 
climate which makes ice a tolerably sure crop, 
it has a wide stretch of navigable fresh water. 
Clear blocks may be cut here over the very spot 
where next summer ocean vessels will receive 
their loads of ice to be taken directly to the 
cities on the coast farther south. 

Perhaps the business of harvesting ice on a 
great Maine river comes nearer to the fabled 
plucking of apples of gold from the trees in the 
garden of the Hesperides than anything else in 
modern practical industry. The ice, to begin 
with, is nature's gift to everybody. There is no 
property in it, no ownership of it by any one, 
until it has been marked out to cut ; and any one 
may do that and possess the ice if he is able to 
cut it afterward. 

[28] 



A Winter Harvest 



But this free gift of nature brings to those who 
live on the Kennebec River, along the twenty- 
five miles from Augusta, where there is a dam, 
down below the foot of Swan Island, where the 
water begins to be brackish, a yearly income of 
from one to four millions of dollars, according 




to the price for which they sell their crop of a 
million to a miUion and a half tons of ice. 

To the Kennebecker, therefore, the winter is 
the real harvest time. That is the season when 
fortunes are most readily acquired by the enter- 
prising, and employment is most easily found by 
those who need it. 

An ice claim must be marked out anew each 
year, and preempted over again as often as the 

[29] 



Industries of To-Day 



ice melts away. On the Kennebec, as soon as 
the ice is strong enough to bear a man, the claim 
is staked out by setting bushes or stakes in the 
ice, or often, where it is very systematically done, 
by setting in joists with boards nailed across 
them. 

The construction of an ice house on the bank 
carries with it, in practice, the right to cut the 
ice on the river in front of it ; and as the ice 
could not be secured without an ice house in 
which to store it, only those who are able to get 
a foothold on the land can gather the ice harvest, 
theoretically free to all. 

There is nothing to do after the claim is 
marked out until the ice has become thick enough 
to carry a horse, so that the snow may be scraped 
off as fast as it falls. Ice will not make rapidly 
under snow and will not attain its full thickness. 
The iceman's most anxious time is when there is 
danger of a snowfall on the ice before it is strong 
enough to bear horses to scrape it. 

If the snow steals a march on the scrapers in 
this way, it is often necessary to get rid of it by a 
very laborious and expensive process. A hole 
is cut through the ice, and the snow saturated 

[30] 



A Winter Harvest 



with water. When this freezes the ice will bear 
a horse ; but the worthless snow ice thus formed 
must be planed off, also by horse power, with a 
planer made for the purpose. The scraping and 
planing is called cultivating the ice, and it is 
generally a very expensive sort of cultivation. 
In a single night the fall of snow may be so 
heavy that the cost of its removal will amount 
to five or six thousand dollars. 

The iceman's crop is nearly ripe when clear 
ice has formed 'to a thickness of twelve inches, 
and then the preparations are made for the 
harvest. 

From the point on the shore where the eleva- 
tor leading to the ice house reaches the brink a 
canal from five to twenty feet wide, according to 
the magnitude of the business, is opened out into 
the river, through which the blocks of ice are 
presently to be floated to the house. 

This canal must be kept clear as long as the ice 
harvest continues, no matter to how many degrees 
below zero the mercury may fall. During the 
day the constant moving of ice blocks through 
the water suffices to keep the channel open ; at 
night, in freezing weather, the necessity giv.es 

[31] 



Industries of To-Day 



rise to one of the coldest and most lonesome 
occupations that one can imagine. 

Armed with a great triangle of heavy pieces of 
wood, which he drags through the water, a man 
marches up and down the channel all night long, 
crushing and scattering the thin sheets of ice 
with his triangle as fast as they form. The 
workman to whom this cheerless task falls must 
be heartily glad that the gray wolves no longer 
make the frozen Kennebec a thoroughfare. 

With the opening of the canal comes an 
interesting result at once. The thickness of the 
ice is increased by the exposure of the water and 
the cooling of its surface. The cold is let into 
the river, as it were, both below and above the 
cut. By the time all this has been done, the 
middle of January has generally been reached. 
The date varies, of course, with the season. 

The ice has now a thickness of from twelve 
to eighteen inches. Sometimes it is more than 
that; but this greater thickness is a disadvan- 
tage, because it renders the blocks of ice hard 
to bar off from the field. Now the field is 
carefully marked off, with a grooving machine 
drawn by a horse, into regular parallelograms, 

[32] 



A Winter Harvest 



which are generally twenty-two by thirty inches, 
the size which the individual blocks of ice are 
to be. 

The ice field, unlike other fields, is cultivated 
before it is plowed. It is only now, when the 
marker has grooved the ice across and across. 




that the ice plow is brought, or rather that sev- 
eral ice plows are brought, for several go over the 
same ground in succession. 

A plow which cuts to a depth of six inches 
first follows the marker's grooves. Then comes 
another, which cuts two inches deeper, and then 
another, and so on until the trenches have been 
carried so deep that the blocks of ice may be 
barred off or loosened from the field. 

[33l 



Industries of To-Day 



Beginning at the outermost end of the canal, 
and working out at right angles with it as far as 
the field has been marked, the workmen break 
off, with a heavy wedge-shaped instrument called 
a bursting bar, sheets or sections of blocks of 
ice, making a new channel running off from the 
original canal. Through this channel the sheets 
of ice are forced, by means of hooks, to the main 
canal, and thence to the foot of the elevator 
which runs to the ice house. 

At this point a narrow bridge of planks is 
thrown across the canal, upon which is posted a 
man armed with an iron bar. Standing with his 
face toward the shore, this man separates the 
sheets of ice into single blocks, with quick blows 
of his bar, as they float beneath him. With a 
quick push he thrusts each block over revolving 
chains upon the elevator. These chains are pro- 
vided with lags or straight bars of wood, and 
the block is drawn up the inclined plane into 
the ice house by the continual movement of the 
elevator. 

There is here an ingenious but very simple 
arrangement by means of which the blocks of ice 
are left at the proper place. At the level of the 

[34] 



A Winter Harvest 



floor of the ice house is a pocket or open space 
in the floor of the elevator, through which the 
ice passes. When it is desired to carry the 
cakes higher, the pocket or hole is closed with 
boards, and the ice intelligently keeps on to the 
next pocket above. 

In the house the blocks of ice are placed close 
together on their sides, and left three or four 
inches apart at the ends, so that they will not 
freeze together with the melting and freezing to 
come. 

The crop is harvested now ; and if the iceman 
has had a fairly fortunate season, he has garnered 
at least a thousand tons to the acre. Not infre- 
quently the crop reaches thirteen hundred tons 
to the acre. 

The river is at its busiest in February, but the 
opening of navigation brings another busy season. 
All summer long schooners and barges, under 
tow, ply up and down, receiving their cargoes at 
the ice wharves. The blocks of ice are sent 
down the runway to the vessel's side, and there 
lowered into her hold. 

Machinery is used here, too, as far as possible. 
A lowering winch is placed at the hatchway of 

[35] 



Industries of To-Day 



the vessel, and the ice is lowered by the aid of 
ropes and pulleys. The workers in the ice har- 
vest are frequently farmers and their sons from 
the country lying back from the river.. Often 
the ice workers are engaged in the sawmills 
in the summer season. 

Thus a crop which costs nothing for seed, 
nothing for the ground to raise it upon, and 
nothing to fertilize, but a good deal to cultivate 
and still more to harvest, becomes a source of 
wealth to many and of profitable employment to 

many more. 

J. E. Chamberlin. 



[36] 



CALIFORNIA RAISIN MAKING 

Until within a few years all the raisins con- 
sumed in the United States were imported from 
Europe. It was supposed that they could not 
be produced in America because the climate was 
not warm enough and dry enough for a season 
of sufficient length for the purpose. But when, 
in 1849, American gold hunters invaded Cali- 
fornia, they not only found growing the largest 
and finest grapes they had ever seen, but also 
discovered that those left on the vines after 
ripening became raisins. 

These raisins were not, however, of the best 
quality, for the vines on which they grew were 
such as the Franciscan fathers brought with 
them from Spain, a hundred years before, when 
sent among the native Indians who then lived 
on this Pacific coast. 

Enterprising Americans, aided by foreigners 
from the wine and raisin-making countries of 
Europe, imported many varieties of the best 

[37] 



Industries of To-Day 



kinds of vines that could be found. Among 
these were the white Muscatels and Malagas, 
from which the best raisins are made. 

The white grapes have flourished well, espe- 
cially in southern California, where the long 
warm and dry seasons are favorable for making 
raisins. The entire absence of rain for the six 
continuous months, May to November, and an 
almost complete freedom from fogs or dews in 
many localities during the ripening and drying 
season, render this the most favorable climate in 
the world for producing raisins. 

The grapevine here is not staked and tied up, 
in order to keep the fruit from the ground, as 
is done in the Middle and Eastern states. The 
cuttings begin to bear the Seconal year after plant- 
ing, and for several years they are allowed to trail 
on the ground, after being cut back each season, 
so that the fruit hangs very low. It is believed 
to ripen better on the dry, sandy soil than when 
suspended in the atmosphere, which is always 
cool at night. 

As the roots grow older the main stalk of each 
is trained to a tree shape, twelve to thirty inches 
high, and in some old vineyards these stumps 

[38] 



California Raisin Making 



have reached a diameter of from six to ten inches. 
The stumps are trimmed closely every winter or 
early spring, and from their tops new sprouts 
spring forth which bear the next crop of fruit. 
The yield of grapes is enormous, ranging from 
one ton to two or three tons an acre. 

Very few vineyard owners manufacture their 
grapes into either wine or raisins. It requires 
more knowledge, skill, and capital to do either 
thah the mere farmer generally possesses. But 
the raisin makers, like the wine makers, gener- 
ally own and cultivate vineyards, of from one 
hundred to one thousand acres. There is one 
in Los Angeles County, covering five thousand 
acres, which is the largest in the world. 

Several methods of drying grapes into raisins 
are practiced by the smaller cultivators. The 
following is the most popular and may be seen 
in operation at almost every country and village 
house in southern California. Some time in 
September or October small quantities of the 
finest Muscatel grapes are bought at one cent 
a pound. Some of the bunches weigh from two 
to five pounds, and are so large that they have 
to be cut in pieces to dry. 

[39] 



Industries of To-Day 



They are spread out as thinly as possible, no 
bunch on top of another, on some sunny porch 
floor, on the roof of a house or shed, or on trays 
made of laths or shakes, as the Californians call 
the redwood clapboards; these are placed upon 
trestles in the yard. Here the grapes lie in the 
hot sun all day long. After they begin to color 
and shrink they are generally covered at night 
with some kind of canvas. 

In two or three weeks the bunches are care- 
fully turned over and allowed to continue dry- 
ing until they are thoroughly colored and all 
the juice has evaporated. Thus thousands upon 
thousands of families are now making their own 
raisins at a very small cost. 

But now for the way in which raisins are made 
to sell. The grape grower, if he cultivates only 
eight or ten acres, can, with the aid of wife and 
children, gather his own fruit and haul it to the 
raisin maker ; but if he is a man of means and 
manages his hundred or m^ore acres, he hires a 
force of Chinamen, who with crooked pruning 
knives go through the vineyards, clip off all the 
ripe bunches of grapes, and place them carefully 
on shallow trays. 

[40] 



California Raisin Making 



When filled these trays are gathered up and 
loaded into two-horse spring wagons, and hauled 




Raisin Making 

up many miles into level places among the foot- 
hills of the mountains to escape the danger of 
fogs, which often rise late in the season on the 
lower plains. 

[41] 



Industries of To-Day 



Here from fifty to one hundred acres of as 
level land as can be found have been scraped 
and rolled smooth. On these fields the grapes 
are spread upon the ground by drawing the bot- 
tom from each tray and letting them drop gently 
on their warm bed. They are thus emptied in 
successions of rows, hundreds of feet long and of 
uniform width, from dozens of wagons that come 
and go day after day from every direction. 

Such grape fields resemble an immense carpet 
store where every imaginable pattern of goods is 
rolled out in the hope of pleasing some fastidious 
customer. The freshly laid rows present a light 
green shade of color, those that have been down 
a few weeks have a mottled appearance, while 
those that are nearly dry enough have a deeper 
and more uniform tint. 

For the reason that the dry soil retains its 
warmth during the night, grapes dry more 
quickly on the ground than if elevated on 
boards, and they also more completely retain 
their flavor. In two weeks the smaller bunches 
are ready to be gathered up, and the larger 
bunches must be turned over so as to be dried 
on the under side. This drying requires two 

[42] 



California Raisin Making 



weeks longer, when they also are taken up. Then 
follow the gleaners, women and children, who 
gather up all the loose berries that have fallen 
off. These are sold as dried grapes. 

When the later crop is on the ground and the 
first showers are expected, raisin dryers bring 
upon the field great rolls of oiled Manila paper; 
and at night or when rain is threatened, this 
paper is spread upon the rows of grapes for the 
purpose of keeping them dry. This process is 
sometimes continued until late in December. 

The dried grapes are put into boxes holding 
about a bushel and hauled to the packing house, 
where they are piled on top of one another as 
high as the ceiling or roof. In the course of 
eight or ten days the slight moisture left in some 
of them, and the heat, cause them to sweat, and 
this moisture so permeates the whole bulk as to 
give them a soft and fresh appearance. They 
are then ready for sorting and boxing. This is 
done by women and Chinamen, seated, forty or 
fifty in a room, at long tables. 

To each is emptied as needed a box full of 
fruit ; and beside each are placed two new, clean 
boxes, into one of which the largest and most 

[43] 



Industries of To-Day 



perfect bunches are packed. In the other box 
are placed the smaller and less perfect bunches. 
The loose raisins are passed through a windmill, 
and when cleaned of their stems and dust are 
boxed as " Loose Muscatels." Though most of 
them are the finest of the crop they sell for a much 
lower price than those adhering to the stems. 

Three sizes of boxes are made, one to hold five 
pounds, another fifteen pounds, and the largest 
to hold twenty pounds. As the boxes are filled 
heaping full a careful inspector examines and 
weighs each, taking out any surplus, and passes 
them to the pressman, who puts on the lids and 
places them in the press, where they are gradually 
squeezed down and the lids nailed on. 

They are then ready to be shipped to their 
Eastern and Northern markets by the carload, 
— about one thousand boxes to the car. But 
as they are not considered perishable goods, like 
oranges, lemons, and pears, they are not rushed 
off regardless of demand or prices. The conse- 
quence is that they have a steady as well as ready 
sale at prices which afford a very fair profit to 
the enterprising manufacturer. 

Elias Longley. 

[44] 



A CROP OF CRANBERRIES 

"Three years ago that land was fit for nothing 
but to hold the world together," said a prosperous 
Cape Cod owner, surveying his cranberry marsh 
with pride, " and now it 's worth a thousand dol- 
lars an acre." 

It does seem as if fairy tales had come true 
when unsightly bogs can thus be turned into gold, 
until one remembers that the means employed 
are the prosaic ones of time, labor, and capital. 
A marsh is selected in the neighborhood of 
running water, its tangle of bushes is burned, 
stumps and roots are removed, and the sods cut 
and turned over to give a uniform bottom of 
the rich underlying loam, which is afterwards 
covered with sand from two to six inches deep. 

Each bog is then encircled by a low dike of 
earth, inside which is a ditch, and ditches are 
cut across it at distances governed by the char- 
acter of the soil and its consequent demand for 
a greater or less amount of moisture. Then the 

[45] 



Industries of To-Day 



ground is ready for planting, and so hardy is the 
cranberry that this operation can be successfully 
performed in an apparently reckless manner. 

A mass of plants is sometimes run through a 
hay-cutter, which chops them up in bits an inch 
long, and these are sown broadcast and harrowed 
into the soil like oats; yet after such* heroic treat- 
ment they live and spread undauntedly. 

The most approved method of planting, how- 
ever, is that of marking off the ground into 
squares of eighteen inches, by drawing across 
it a sled having several runners. The cuttings 
are then dropped at the intersection of these 
lines and pressed into the earth with a forked 
stick. 

All winter and until the early spring the cran- 
berry meadows are flooded with water, not only 
to guard the plants against frost but also that 
insect eggs may be killed and the fertilizing 
agencies deposited which are brought by the 
stream. 

Simply constructed gates of wood separate 
each diked inclosure from its neighbor, and by 
these the water supply can be exactly regulated. 
It is often necessary to raise the water in a 

[46] 



A Crop of Cranberries 



meadow while the berries are ripening, for the 
cranberry is only happy when its roots, imbedded 
in the rich, peaty soil, are kept moist, and the 
sand above is dry. 

In its third year of growth a cranberry marsh 
is ready to begin paying for itself, and the pick- 
ing season usually lasts from the middle of Sep- 
tember for about six weeks. 

This brings about an odd division of the school 
year in the cranberry districts. The summer term 
is lengthened and the spring vacation cut short, 
to enable the fall term to begin near the first of 
November. This is really a matter of necessity 
rather than of choice with the committee, for 
should the schools open, not a single pupil would 
appear except the smallest toddlers, whom the 
mother would gladly send out of the way that 
she might devote herself to cranberry picking. 

Picking time is the carnival season at the 
Cape. The ordinary business of life is sus- 
pended. Houses are closed from early morning 
till night. Cooking is done in the evening or 
on rainy days, and beds are merely spread up in 
time for the tired workers to tumble into them. 
Flocks of pickers of all ages and sizes settle 

[47] 



Industries of To-Day 



upon the large cranberry marshes Uke swarms 
of locusts. 

Even grandfather is eager to earn a little 
money to provide for his daily smoke in the 
chimney corner. Fathers and mothers of fam- 
ilies depend on the season for supplying their 
everyday needs ; and many a pretty girl who 
would scorn going out to work at any other 
time, gladly undertakes this back-breaking occu- 
pation for the sake of the pin money it brings. 

Every picker dons his or her worst and some- 
times most picturesque clothes for the occasion. 
Old hats and cape bonnets that have, perhaps, 
hung in the shed or garret the year round are 
seized upon as exactly the thing. Stocking legs 
are drawn over feminine arms as a defensive 
armor against sun and briers. Each picker is 
furnished with a measure holding six quarts, and 
the ground is marked off in rows, usually about 
four feet wide, by cords stretched from pegs. 

Often these spaces are varied, as some of the 
best pickers prefer to work in a division alone ; 
or a party of three girls, or mother and children, 
wish to pick together. A veteran picker is shown 
in the accompanying illustration. 

[48] 



A Crop of Cranberries 



Cranberries are not picked like strawberries, 
daintily and one by one. Experienced workers 
plunge both hands under the vines, palms upward 
and fingers curved, and literally scoop up the fruit 
by handfuls. A rake, which allows the vines to 
pass through its teeth and retains the berries, is 
also used, but is far less 
satisfactory than hand 
labor. 

When a measure is filled 
and emptied the book- 
keeper standing near gives 
the picker credit in his 
account, though tally is 
sometimes kept by means 
of tickets, each of which 
represents a measure and a Veteran 

may be exchanged at the store for tea, sugar, 
or other commodities. The usual price paid is 
ten cents a measure, and the laborers, like those 
in other occupations, are sometimes discontented. 

A few years ago a strike for higher wages 
occurred on a large marsh where there were 
five hundred pickers. Fifty of these, preferring 
a half-loaf to no bread, kept meekly on with their 

[49] 




Industries of To-Day 



work at the old price, and, sad to relate, the 
malcontents, perched comfortably on the dikes 
as a vantage ground, pelted them with a shower 
of sticks and stones. Harmony was finally 
restored and* the strikers went back to work, 
but, as one old woman among them declared, they 
looked thereafter upon the fifty workers as poor- 
spirited creatures. 

" Of course, as they work by the job, there is 
no chance of cheating," said a visitor to a shrewd 
proprietor. 

He looked skeptical. " I tell you," he said, 
" cranberry pickets are just like all the rest of the 
world. Some wouldn't take a berry to save their 
lives, and others lie awake nights to think how 
to fill up their measures. 

" Some will slyly take a new measure and dent 
in the bottom, and others have a way of giving 
the measures a shake so as to toss the berries 
up and make five quarts look like six. Human 
nature is mighty human on a cranberry bog ! " 

Berry picking has its champion workers, some 
of whom average over two hundred quarts a 
day, and there is a well-supported tradition that 
one nimble-fingered individual once distinguished 

[so] 



A Crop of Cranberries 



himself by picking three hundred and fifty quarts 
in that length of time. 

Such workers show the concentration common 
to all champions. They seldom speak, but bend 
over the vines, giving their entire attention to 
the matter in hand. Even at noon, when the 
pickers sit about on the grass eating their din- 
ners from baskets and pails, these more zealous 




^ '^^^-^^ " 



Picking Cranberries 

members of the band are unwilling to spare the 
half or three quarters of an hour allotted to the 
meal, but seize a hasty bite and run back to work. 
There are certain points of honor to be observed 
on the meadow, one of which relates to that oper- 
ation known as picking under the lines. A crafty 
and overreaching worker may see and covet a 
goodly growth of berries on his neighbor's pre- 
serves ; but though it be side by side with his 

[51] 



Industries of To-Day 



own, he may not, under penalty of remonstrance 
more forcible than pleasant, reach under for a sly 
handful. One such offense might be punished 
and forgiven, but a repetition of it would cause 
him to be ostracized by his fellows, who would 
ever after refuse to pick in his neighborhood. 

The berries are screened, or separated from 
leaves and foreign substances, by means of a 
simple, box-shaped arrangement, presided over 
by women, or, with the more enterprising owners, 
by a clumsy-looking but most ingenious machine 
turned by a crank. The berries, poured in at the 
top, are winnowed by a blast of air, and as they 
fall on a glass surface below, the sound ones are 
separated from those which are imperfect. The 
good berries rebound, and hop upon a revolv- 
ing belt, which carries them out of the machine, 
while the imperfect ones drop down into a recep- 
tacle prepared for them. 

The perfect fruit is then placed in barrels of 
standard size, containing one hundred quarts, or 
in smaller crates, and sent away to market. 

Frost-bitten berries have always been utilized 
for the making of marmalade, but it is only of 
late that they have also been used for dyeing. 

[52] 



A Crop of Cranberries 



Even one who has not seen the color produced 
can imagine how royally red it would be. 

When cranberries are exported it would be 
interesting to know if they are often given a 
reception similar to that accorded by an English 
gentleman to a barrel sent him by a friend. 

"The berries arrived safely," he wrote in return, 
" but they soured on the passage." The natural 
inference is that he had attempted to eat them 
with sugar and cream.. 

When we are told that a fair yield of cran- 
berries consists of a hundred barrels to the acre, 
and that a fine quality of fruit always finds a ready 
market, we may understand a farmer's sinking all 

his capital in a marsh. 

Alice Brown. 










■^ V 




> «ar-^k 






[S3] 



A MAPLE-SUGAR CAMP 

In March the people in Vermont, and in other 
states where the sugar maple is grown, begin to 
look for what they call the sugar snow. While the 
ground is still white and the river is filled with 
broken ice, just as the winter is ending and the 
earth is relaxing from its frosty thraldom, the soft 
snow that comes helps the flow of sap; hence 
it is called the siigar snow, and is welcomed with 
much gladness and many preparations. Sugar 
snow and sugar time are among the most delight- 
ful experiences in the year to young people in 
the Green Mountains. 

After the outbreak of the Civil War my father 
moved from a large town into Vermont, and I 
shall never forget the excitement which prevailed 
among us when he announced one day that work 
would then begin in the sugar place. 

The first work in a sugar camp is to scatter 
the buckets. The farmer goes to each tree with 
his bit, and bores one, two, or three holes through 

[54] 



A Maple-Sugar Camp 



the bark. Into each hole he inserts a wooden 
or a galvanized-iron spout, through which the 
sap flows into the buckets suspended below it. 
Thirty years ago the buckets and spouts were 
all of wood, but they have been superseded by 
tin and galvanized iron, which are cleaner and 
more economical. 

The work of tapping is not easy, as the snow 
is usually very deep when it is done. A large 
sugar place in Vermont, where a great amount 
of maple sugar is made, contains from one thou- 
sand to three thousand trees, and a place with 
less than three hundred trees is called a small 
one. If the weather is favorable, — that is, when 
the days are warm and the nights frosty, — the 
buckets attached to the trees first tapped are 
filled before the last ones have been bored, and 
their contents must, be boiled at once. In a 
good season the flow is sometimes so copious 
that the men have to work night and day to 
prevent loss. 

The sap is gathered by a man or boy, who goes 
to the buckets and empties them into large pails 
suspended from a sap yoke which he wears on 
his shoulders. 

[55] 



Industries of To-Day 



When there is a hard crust over the snow to 
hold him up, this work in the bright morning, 
with the bluest of skies above, is not unpleasant ; 
but when the orchard is large and the snow deep 
and soft, and he has been toiling through the day 
and into the darkening night, attending to the 
steady drip, drip, drip in the overflowing buckets, 
he is apt to think that sugar time is not so jolly 
after all. 

While the sap is being gathered the boiling 
must be kept up continuously. In the days of 
wooden spouts and buckets the sugar was made 
in a great iron caldron, suspended by chains over 
a fire in the open air. As the fire burned and 
the caldron bubbled, the winds made free con- 
tributions of dirt, twigs, sand, and smoke, which 
did not tend to improve the flavor of the sugar. 
Probably most of the sugar made in Vermont 
would hardly be marketable to-day if it were 
made in this way. 

Now sugar houses are built, containing brick 
or stone arches, with sheet-iron pans, or evapo- 
rators, in which the sugar is boiled. Being kept 
from contact with anything which is not strictly 
clean, it is purer and of finer grain and lighter 

[56] 



A Maple-Sugar Camp 



color than it used to be. When the sap has been 
boiled until nearly all the water has passed out of 
it in the steam, it is strained and then rapidly 
boiled until it grains or hardens or changes from 
sirup to sugar. 

The work of sugaring off in the old caldron 
made a red-letter day for the children. Provided 




with a spoon and saucer, or a wooden paddle 
made especially for warm sugar, each boy and 
girl w^ould set out for the sugar camp over snow- 
drifts much higher than their heads, and when 
the sugar was nearly done the fun began in good 
earnest. 

[57] 



Industries of To-Day 



Filling their saucers with the sugar the chil- 
dren repaired to the nearest clean snow and 
spread the sugar over it to cool before they ate 
it. There was more merriment than at any 
candy pulling, and it sometimes happened that 
all the farmer's family were encamped in the 
woods to help in the work. 

When I went to the old schoolhouse of our 

district I was proud to find in my geography 

that Vermont produced more maple sugar than 

any other state in the Union. 

Ruth Russ. 



[58] 



AMONG THE PINES 

Maine has been very properly called the Pine 
Tree State, for it is in her almost exhaustless 
pine forests that she finds one of her sources of 
wealth and commercial importance. Although 




--.. /v 



4' (^M'i^'h^ ^» l^'^'S' 





spruce and hemlock have been gradually taking 
the place of the pine in the lumber trade, there are 
still vast unexplored tracts stretching far away 
toward Canada, where this noble tree flourishes 
in all its old-time grandeur and luxuriance. 

Early in the fall, sometimes by the first or 
middle of October, the advance guards of the 

[59] 



Industries of To-Day 



lumber crews, each consisting of some half a 
dozen men, start for the forests where their 
employers' claims are situated. They select a 
place as near as possible to one of the small 
streams that thread this vast lumber region in 
every direction, and build the camp which is to 
serve them and their comrades for a shelter dur- 
ing the long, cold winter that is at hand. 

A hut, proportioned to the size of the crew that 
is to occupy it, is built of large logs, carefully 
notched and fitted at the corners and chinked 
with moss and clay. A stone fireplace is built 
in one corner, and bunks for the men are placed 
against the wall and filled with the fragrant tips 
of pine boughs to serve as beds. 

The roof is made of long, split shingles, fastened 
down with long poles instead of being nailed, and 
finally covered with spruce boughs, which, after 
the first fall of snow, keep out the wind and frosts 
very effectually. The earlier camps used to have 
only the hard-trodden earth for floors, and were 
without such conveniences as tables, plates, etc., 
but now there are plank floors, and a table with 
a suitable supply of crockery is in most cases pro- 
vided as part of the woodman's necessary outfit. 

[60] 



Among the Pines 



Near the hut of the loggers another is con- 
structed with much care, to make it as comfort- 
able as possible for the dumb companions of their 
winter's toil, the patient, plodding oxen or the 
quicker horses. By the time everything is ready 
for their reception the men and cattle make their 
appearance with the supply of food that is to serve 
them all during the winter. Flour, pork, beans, 
molasses, and tea are the staples. Sometimes a 
barrel of corned beef finds its way into the camp, 
but as a rule the diet of the men consists of hot 
flour bread, with pork fat for a relish, and tea 
without milk, sweetened with molasses. These, 
with the indispensable dish of baked beans, 
cooked to perfection in a hole dug in the earth 
and lined with hot stones, form luxurious fare to 
appetites sharpened by hard work in the cold, 
frosty air of midwinter. 

Sometimes a lucky shot may bring down a 
moose, or an equally lucky find may put them 
in possession of enough bear meat to make every 
day a feast day for a week or two. The fat of 
the bear is said to be very delicate, and is much 
prized by hunters and lumbermen. In it they fry 
their favorite dainty, the Yankee doughnut. 

[6i] 



Industries of To-Day 



A crew is generally directed by a boss, who 
takes the charge of affairs, allots the work, and 
sees that it is faithfully performed by the chop- 
pers, swampers, teamster, and cook. 

The boss decides upon the best place to com- 
mence operations, and then all hands clear a road 
from that spot to the stream, so that when the 
snow comes there will be a comparatively smooth 
and level roadway for the teams to drag their 
ponderous loads over during the winter. 

Commencing his work with the earliest gleams 
of daylight, the sturdy, strong-armed chopper plies 
his ax, stopping only for a hasty dinner at twelve, 
until the ghostly shadows of twilight fall upon 
him from between the dusky tree trunks, and 
the evening star, far above in the blue wintry 
sky, seems resting like a glowing gem upon the 
topmost spire of the giant pine above his head. 

Then the weary worker turns his steps camp- 
ward, where a blazing fire and a hot supper soon 
make him forget the cold and fatigue of the 
day; while in the companionship of his mates 
he finds the mental stimulus that binds him to 
the half -forgotten world outside his own forest 
solitudes. 

[62] 



Among the Pines 



Besides the hard work there is always more or 
less danger in felling these mighty trees. The 
experienced chopper can easily detect by the 




A Camp in Winter 

motion of the swaying trunk in what direction it 
is about to fall, and he makes his retreat accord- 
ingly; but as the enormous branches go crash- 
ing down through the. tops of the smaller trees, 

[63] 



Industries of To-Day 



they are often broken and hurled through the 
air, crushing whatever Hes in their track, occa- 
sionally wounding and sometimes killing the 
luckless chopper, whose skill in woodcraft proved 
insufHcient to shield him from this unexpected 
danger. 

The tallest trees are usually sawed at the 
landing into logs of a convenient length for 
the drive, which begins as soon as the spring 
sun has acquired power to melt the immense 
masses of snow and ice that cover the hillsides. 
Then every little brook is swelled to a raging 
torrent, into whose eager embrace the logs are 
hurried, and the perilous and exciting work of 
the river driver begins. 

From lakes and tributary streams the logs are 
soon driven into the main river, where they 
become indistinguishable in the mass called the 
main drive. The different crews now vie with 
one another in deeds of agility and daring, and 
it is wonderful to note the skill and promptness 
with which these men, scorning danger and dis- 
comfort, manage to keep millions of rolling logs 
in the main channel of the river. The task is far 
from being an easy one. 

[64] 



Among the Pines 



Without a dry thread of clothing for many 
days and nights in succession, the river driver 
knows neither rest by day nor ease by night. 
Sometimes the boat containing the supphes fails to 
reach the stopping place for the night in advance 
of the crew, and then the poor fellows, cold and 
wet as they are, must lie down hungry and shelter- 
less upon the bare ground, to snatch such rest as 
they may find in their uncomfortable quarters. 

With the soles of his boots armed with sharp 
spikes to keep him from slipping, and a setting 
pole, with which to guide the logs and steady his 
own steps, the river driver considers himself fairly 
equipped for the toils and dangers awaiting him. 

In a narrow channel between high banks, or at 
the head of a fall, the logs are likely to form what 
is called a jam ; that is, one or more logs chance 
to strike across the stream in such a way as to 
obstruct the passage, so that those pressing on 
behind, unable to pass, are piled high one above 
another in the most inextricable confusion. 

To break one of these jams is a difficult and 
almost always a dangerous task, as the operator 
must in many cases cut away with his ax one or 
more of the obstructing logs, thus letting the 

[65] 



Industries of To-Day 



whole mighty mass loose in an instant, and giv- 
ing him little time to escape from the terrible 
onslaught. 

Sometimes, when the banks are high and the 
channel is very narrow, it is necessary to let a 
man down from the top by a rope to perform 
the dangerous task ; and if he escapes with only 
a few bruises and scratches, he may consider 
himself fortunate, since the parting of the rope, 
or the failure of his comrades to draw him up 
at the very instant that the jam starts, might 
be death swift and sure, without any possibility 
of rescue. 

When at length the logs reach their destination 
they are inclosed in a boom. This is simply a 
floating fence of large logs, fastened together so 
strongly that their wild brethren, fresh from the 
forests, cannot escape from their restraining arms. 

And now it is the duty of the boom master to 
see that each owner has his own logs assigned 
to him fairly and justly. Every man's logs are 
marked by some kind of hieroglyphic cut deep 
into each log by the ax of the loader. If any log, 
either by carelessness or accident, has reached the 
boom unmarked, it becomes the property of the 

[66] 



Among the Pines 



boom master, who is also entitled to a certain pro- 
portion of the lumber as his share for the care 
and labor of harborage and distribution of the 
whole. 

It seems a tame ending to all this wild turmoil, 
this dumb exhibition of unloosened savagery, to 
see the poor logs at last floating meekly down to 
the sawmills, where 

Steam, the slave, shall tear them with his teeth of steel, 

and carve them into plain, commonplace boards 

and staves, which shall, in time, lose even the 

fragrant breath that alone reminds one of their 

forest origin. 

Mrs. H. G. Rowe. 



[67] 



HOW MATCHES ARE MADE 

Many who are yet living recall the difficulties, 
the cut and bruised knuckles, the words of vexa- 
tion that were, fifty years ago, incident to attempts 
to get fire from tinder box, flint, and steel, so 
that a flame might be kindled on the hearth. 
Often the attempt failed, and the housekeeper 
was forced to borrow from the nearest kitchen a 
pan of live coals, or a blazing brand, kept alight 
during the return journey by violent twirling to 
and fro. 

In those days, one hearth fire in every house, 
usually in the kitchen, was constantly maintained, 
unless accident or neglect quenched it. The 
fire kindled by a young couple at their marriage 
burned brightly throughout their lives, and per- 
haps throughout the lives of their children and 
grandchildren. 

The burning glass was in general use among 
smokers, a cloudy day being woeful to them, since 
then they were dependent for a light upon the 

[68] 



How Matches are Made 



favor of some passing stranger, or the good graces 
of the nearest housewife. 

A hundred and fifty years before the invention 
of the match, phosphorus was discovered and the 
principles of the present spHnter were stumbled 
upon by an obscure chemist, who found that 
friction of the new substance between rough sur- 
faces — two pieces of brown parcel paper, for in- 
stance — kindled a flame that would ignite any 
combustible substance, or even a stick, provided 
it had previously been dipped in sulphur or fat 
Strange to say, this w^as regarded merely as an 
interesting chemical experiment. 

In the early part of the present century it was 
found that potassium chlorate, in combination 
with loaf sugar, kindled when brought into con- 
tact with sulphuric acid. The fact was at once 
seized upon, and handsome metal cases soon made 
their appearance, at the price of one guinea, or 
about five dollars. These contained one hundred 
sugar-and-potash-tipped splints, as well as a phial 
holding ground asbestos saturated with sulphuric 
acid. 

But the device quickly fell into disrepute, less 
because of the price, which was ultimately reduced 

[69] 



Industries of To-Day 



one half, than on account of the affinity of the acid 
for water. It absorbed moisture from the atmos- 
phere in such quantities as speedily to render the 
apparatus useless. Later it was suggested that 
if phosphorus were heated in a phial until an 
oxide formed within upon the glass, and a sulphur- 
tipped splint were dipped therein, it would ignite 
on again coming in contact with the outer atmos- 
phere. The cost of phosphorus prevented this 
device from becoming useful. 

In 1827 one John Walker, a chemist of Stock- 
ton-upon-Tees, England, invented the first "luci- 
fer" or friction match. It consisted of a splinter 
dipped in a compound of antimony sulphate and 
potassium chlorate, which was ignited by com- 
pressing between two pieces of sandpaper. This 
proved objectionable, because the heads were likely 
to fly off without igniting the wood. 

A little later phosphorus was substituted for 
antimony, producing what was known as the 
" Congreve," so called in honor of the inventor 
of the Congreve rocket. Gradually the composi- 
tion was improved, other constituents taking the 
place of the potash, until the perfect match was 
developed. 

[70] 



How Matches are Made 



To-day phosphorus is the chief ingredient of 
the tips of all friction matches; it alone secures 
combustion. The sulphur is added only to insure 
a sufhcient continuance of the flame to ignite the 
wood thoroughly. 

The peculiarity of each variety of matches is 
confined solely to the preparation of the tips. 
From one eighth to one twelfth of the tip is red 
lead, niter, or some other substance that will 
secure a proper amount of oxygen to feed the 
flame. The remainder of the tip is phosphorus, 
and gum or glue to secure the fluidity essential to 
adhesiveness and convenience of manipulation. 

Match splints may be made from almost any 
light wood. Birch is preferred in Europe and 
the maritime provinces of Canada; white pine is 
preferred in the United States. One manufac- 
turer consumes annually not less than one and 
a half million feet of the choicest white pine, free 
from knots or flaws, representing a money value 
of about eighty thousand dollars. 

Formerly match splints were cut by a knife 
that rose and fell with every revolution of a 
crank, — a miniature guillotine, — the block of 
wood moving forw^ard with each stroke just the 

[71] 



Industries of To-Day 



thickness of the match. This machine required 
the block to be first boiled in order that the knife 
might cut it almost through without splitting it, 
thus leaving the splinter so slightly adherent as 
to be readily broken off by the fingers. The 
block had to be cut twice over, the second gashes 
at right angles to the first ; the dipping and 
finishing had to be done by hand. 

By the modern process the wood is sawed 
into blocks two inches square, which are fed to 
machines that instantly reduce them to shapely 
match splints. As fast as the splints drop from 
the knife they fall in regular order upon an end- 
less belt which carries them to the dipping trough. 
If a round match is desired, they are first forced 
through dies to give them the required form. 

In the dipping trough their ends are brought 
in contact with a wheel brush revolving in melted 
sulphur. Passing on, they reach a second trough 
where the phosphorous mixture that provides the 
tip is in like manner applied. Without pausing 
they move on to the drying room. After circling 
about this a few times they pass into a contiguous 
apartment to machines that automatically count 
and pack in strawboard boxes. 

[72] 



How Matches are Made 



Formerly the manufacture of.matches was a dan- 
gerous occupation because of the fumes, which, 
coming in contact with the decayed teeth of the 
workmen, induced horrible dis- 
eases of the jaw. This has been 
wholly obviated : first, by the in- 
troduction of automatic machin- 
ery that applies the tip and frees 
workmen from the need to lean 
over the trough to dip the splint ; 
second, by the substitution of 
red, or so-called amorphous phos- 
phorus, for the cheaper and more 
primitive form. 

From red phosphorus also are 
manufactured the so-called '' safe- 
ty matches," a 
phrase which 
is not always^ 
strictly accurate. ^>v^ 
It is popularly 
supposed that 

they can be ignited on a specially prepared 
surface only. In fact, although they do not ignite 
upon friction with rough surfaces, some of those 

[73] 





TNe First 
Friction MatcJi . 



Industries ol To-Day 



which are sold as ■' safeties " may be kindled by a 
short, quick stroke on a smooth or highly polished 
surface, such as a windowpane or a piano top. 

The theory of the safety match is to separate 
the phosphorus and the chlorate, which are united 
in the head of the ordinary match. The dipping 
mixture for the match is of potassium chlorate or 
nitrate, antimony sulphide, and glue. This match 
will not kindle unless it is rubbed against a surface 
containing phosphorus. But some manufacturers 
put a small quantity of phosphorus into the match 
itself, and then it is not a safety match. 

In the " parlor match " it is the potassium chlo- 
rate which causes the explosive detonation. A 
less noisy compound is potassium nitrate. It is 
more costly than the sulphur match, and no better, 
unless one objects to the smell of brimstone. 

Wax matches, or " vestas," are no longer pro- 
duced in the United States, partly because of the 
expense, and partly because the demand-is smaller; 
but abroad they are much used. They are odor- 
less, give a fine light, and offer a happy substitute 
for candle or lamp where but a brief illumination 
is required. Composed of strands of cotton dipped 
in melted wax, or parafiBn, they are molded by being 

[74] 



How Matches are Made 



drawn through dies of the proper size. Subse- 
quently they are cut to match lengths, and tipped 
with a phosphorous mixture in the same way as 
wooden splints. 

The Japanese produce a variety of peculiar 
matches, some of which are made of paper. One 




form burns with an evenly luminous flame creat- 
ing, as combustion advances, a red-hot ball of 
glowing saline matter. 

Another form, when half-consumed, emits a 
series of bright sparks, producing scintillation so 

[75] 



Industries of To-Day 



brilliant as to rival that of steel burning in an 
atmosphere of oxygen. These, I believe, are 
derived from varying combinations of charcoal, 
sulphur, saltpeter, and phosphorus, the proportions 
being known only to those who are engaged in 
their production. 

There are upward of one hundred and fifty 
manufacturers of matches in the United States 
alone, and perhaps one half as many in Canada. 
It has been computed that an average of eight 
splints is required to supply the daily needs of 
each individual, great and small, throughout the 
civilized world. In other words, three millions of 
matches are ignited for each minute of time 
throughout the twenty-four hours ! Yet matches 
are almost unknown in many parts of Europe, — 
especially in the remote regions of the Austrian, 
Russian, and Ottoman dominions, where the 
brazier of live coals is in universal use. 

G. A. Stockwell. 



[76] 



HOW SOAP IS MADE 

The origin of soap is a mystery, but we have 
many evidences of its antiquity. Under the 
name of borith it is mentioned at least twice 
in the Bible at a period corresponding to sev- 
eral centuries before Christ. 

In the Louvre in Paris there is an interesting 
old vase of Etruscan manufacture, the age of 
which is computed at about twenty-five hundred 
years. It is interesting in connection with our 
subject as bearing in relief a group of children 
who are engaged in blowing bubbles from pipes: 
Though we must not overlook the fact that cer- 
tain vegetable juices are capable of being used 
in blowing bubbles, it is for many reasons more 
probable that soap of artificial manufacture was 
employed for the purpose. 

In the unearthed city of Pompeii, the preser- 
vation of which has been the means of revealing 
to lis many antique customs, there is to be seen 
a soap manufactory, with all the kettles and other 

[77] 



Industries of To-Day 



paraphernalia pertaining to the business ; also a 
quantity of soap, evidently the product of these 
antique soap works. 

I had the good fortune, when visiting Pompeii, 
to obtain not only some of this ancient soap, but 
also some peculiar white clay of a highly sapona- 
ceous character and possessing remarkable deter- 
gent properties. It was taken from the bottom of 
a well sunk inside the soap factory — the spring, 
no doubt, from which the Pompeian soap manufac- 
turer obtained the water which he used in making 
his soap. 

Political economists tell us that the quantity 
of soap consumed by a nation is a gauge of its 
state of civilization ; and in this connection it is 
interesting to observe that the country in which 
soap manufacture was first conducted as a com- 
mercial enterprise is far behind others to-day as 
a soap-making or soap-consuming community. 

The English manufacture the largest quantity 
of soap in proportion to the population, the output 
being a little over one pound a week for each per- 
son, while in America it is just a little under that 
figure. But we must not concede that this indi- 
cates a higher civihzation in England than in 

[78] 



How Soap is Made 



America. Great Britain not only consumes more 
soap than America does in various manufactures, 
but she exports a great deal of her product, some of 
which is used by the people of the United States. 
Germany follows next ; then France, then Hol- 
land, — while Italy takes a poor sixth place. 

The United States can boast the largest and 
most perfectly equipped soap factories in the 
world. Some of them have a capacity of more 
than three million pounds a week — a striking 
contrast to the little establishment at Pompeii, 
which, though perfect in its equipment, had 
scarcely a capacity of as many grains, equivalent 
to about four hundred pounds. 

Of all the soaps which are now or have ever 
been manufactured, those made from olive oil 
are the best. It is not surprising that the olive- 
growing countries of southern Europe should 
have acquired such a great and world-wide repu- 
tation as soap-producing regions, for their natural 
advantages for such an industry are great. 

On the one hand their cHmate and the fertility 
of their soil fitted them well for the cultivation 
of the olive, and on the other the immeilse sup- 
ply of seaweed, from the ashes of which they 

[79] 



Industries of To-Day 



prepared their caustic lyes, gave them an advan- 
tage over the rest of the world. 

However, through the discovery of a means 
of producing caustic soda in unlimited quantity 
from our enormous salt deposits and even from 
the ocean itself, soap making has ceased to be a 
local industry. 

At the present time the alkali plains of the 
United States promise to become an important 
center for this industry ; for there in nature is to 
be found a large quantity of alkali which can be 
had for the trouble of taking it from the soil. It 
is now being used in converting into soap the 
tallow and grease from the large herds of live 
stock raised on the adjoining plains. 

In its essentials the process of manufacturing 
soap has scarcely changed since the time of the 
Pompeians. The large factories use the same 
methods that were employed in Pompeii eigh- 
teen or more centuries ago ; and the process is 
so simple that the farmer, or more frequently his 
wife, can and often does make the household soap. 

The simple boiling of a quickened lye with 
grease or oil, and the subsequent addition of salt 
to separate the excess of water and glycerine, 

[80] 



How Soap is Made 



which would make the soap too soft were they 
not removed, constitute the process. Grease and 
oils used in soap making contain glycerine, and 
soap making consists in boiling the fat long 
enough, and with sufficient caustic lye, to sep- 
arate all the glycerine from the fat. Formerly 
it was the habit of the soap maker to throw away 
all the waste lyes which contained this glycerine; 
and in this way an enormous value in material 
must have been wasted. To-day nearly every 
soap factory also makes glycerine, and this is a 
very important and profitable branch of the busi- 
ness. This is as much a triumph of modern 
chemistry as is the method of obtaining caustic 
soda from common salt. 

Chemistry has also shown us from what an 
enormous variety of sources the fatty matters used 
in soap making may be obtained. Every fish and 
animal, every fruit, flower, and plant, yields its 
characteristic oil. It has even been proposed to 
utilize the seventeen-year locust for this purpose, 
as a large proportion of his body consists of oil. 
The chrysalides of the silkworm, of which many 
tons are produced yearly, have long been utilized 
as soap stock, both in Italy and in China. 

[8i] 



Industries of To-Day 



One of the greatest problems in modern chem- 
istry is to convert the oils of crude petroleum into 
a soap-making material. It has already been 
vainly attacked by many eminent chemists, and 
numerous experiments have been made. It is 
doubtful if the problem will be solved for many 
years. 

Although the process of making soap is very 
simple, like anything else it may be done in a 
slipshod manner. Many badly made soaps con- 
tain a great deal of free alkali, the effect of which 
is to destroy linen, cotton, and other fabrics, while 
upon the skin it acts as a cautery, causing some- 
times very painful sores and irritation. 

A soap may be tested for free alkali by cutting 
a piece and holding the tip of the tongue for a 
few moments in contact with the freshly cut sur- 
face. If free alkali be present the soap will cause 
a biting sensation. If any considerable excess of 
free alkali can be detected, the soap should not 
be used. 

Of course the use of strongly alkaline soaps 
for cleaning woodwork, and even for washing 
clothes, is not so harmful as is its use for toilet 
purposes. 

[82] 



How Soap is Made 



Toilet soaps, some of them of excellent quality, 
are sold in the form of powder. The test for 
them is the same as for hard soap. 




There are now so many makers of good soap, 
both in America and in Europe, that there is no 
reason why any one should be satisfied with cheap 
and useless soaps. In reality these soaps adver- 
tise themselves as a poor article by not bearing 
the name of a reputable manufacturer. 

Peter H. Walsh. 



[83] 



HOW PINS ARE MADE 

Metal pins were made by hand in the sixteenth 
century. Before that time small skewers of ivory 
or wood were used, just as the negroes in the 
country districts of the South use the long thorns 
of the haw tree to-day. 

The first metal pins were probably made of 
gold, because in England they were considered 
such an extravagant luxury that the makers were 
not allowed to sell them publicly except on two 
days of the year. Then it became the custom, 
at the beginning of each year, for husbands to 
give their wives money to buy a few pins. To 
this day, for this reason, money allowed to a 
woman for her private spending is called "pin 
money." 

Many packages of pins may be bought now 
for the amount asked for a single pin in those 
days ; yet each one of these Httle articles — so 
cheap that the least coin in any civilized country 
is large enough to buy many of them — requires 

[84] 



How Pins are Made 



very expensive machinery and the attention of 
several men and women to make it. 

The process of making the wire from which 
the pins are manufactured is of itself slow and 
complex, but it is not considered in pin making, 
because the wire is made by one manufacturer 
and sold by him to 
another who makes 
the pins. This wire 
comes in coils of 
great length, and is __ 
just the size of the 
body of the pin. 

It is first drawn 
between six or eight 
little rollers, to press 
all the bends and kinks out of it. The machine 
which does this also winds the wire carefully on 
a large reel ; and this reel is placed on a spindle 
attached to the machine which makes the pins. 

When a reel is put on the spindle a workman 
inserts the free end of the wire between two steel 
rollers, which draw it in and feed it properly to 
the cutters. After this it continues to feed itself. 
As the wire leaves the rollers it passes between 

[S5] 




Industries of To-Day 



two matched dies until it touches a gauge. Just 
as it does this the dies come together and clamp 
it firmly in a groove in their face. At the same 
time the machine cuts it off the proper length. 
The gauge then moves away, and a little punch 
forms the head by striking the end which rested 
against the gauge. 

When this is finished the dies separate and 
deliver the pin into one of a great many grooves 
in the face of a wheel about a foot in diameter, 
and just as wide across its face as the pin is long. 

As soon as the first pin leaves the dies, the 
feed rollers send the wire between them again, 
and the whole operation is repeated. 

When the pin is taken by the wheel it has no 
point; but as the wheel turns it rubs the pins 
against an outside band, which causes each one 
to roll in its groove, and at the same time carries 
them past a set of rapidly moving files, which rub 
against the blunt ends and sharpen them roughly. 

They next pass against the faces of two grind- 
ing wheels, which smooth the points, and then to 
a rapidly moving leather band having fine emery 
glued on its face. This gives them the final 
polish; and as they leave the band they are 

[86] 



How Pins are Made 



dropped into a box underneath the machine. 
This machine works so rapidly that it makes 
seven thousand five hundred pins an hour. 

After this the pins are plated with tin to give 
them a bright, silvery appearance. They are 
prepared for plating by being first immersed in 
weak sulphuric acid, to remove all grease, and 
then dried by being placed — a bushel or so at 
a time, with about the same quantity of sawdust 
— in a machine called 
a tumbling barrel. 
This is simply a cask 
suspended on a shaft, 
which passes through 
it lengthwise. The shaft is made to turn by 
means of a belt, and in doing this it revolves 
the barrel. Two or three hours rolling in this 
sawdust cleans the pins and wears away any 
little roughness which the machine may have 
caused. 

Pins and sawdust are taken together from the 
barrel and allowed to fall in a steady stream 
through a blast of air. As the sawdust is lighter, 
it is blown over into a large, room-like box, while 
the pins, being heavier, fall into a bin below. 

[87] 




Industries of To-Day 



After this they are spread out in trays having 
sheets of zinc in their bottoms, which have been 
previously connected with one of the wires of an 
electric battery. The trays are then placed in a 
tank containing a solution of tin in muriatic acid, 
and the other wire of the battery is inserted in the 
solution. Electrical action immediately begins 
and deposits metallic tin on the entire surface of 
each pin. 

They are then washed in a tank of water and 
put into other tumbling barrels with hot sawdust. 
When they have been dried and cleansed, as in the 
former instance, they are put into a large, slowly- 
revolving copper-lined tub, which is tilted at an 
angle of about forty-five degrees. As this revolves 
the pins keep sliding down the smooth copper 
to the lower side. This constant rubbing against 
the tub and against one another polishes them. 

It was formerly the practice to allow pins of all 
lengths to become mixed m the different opera- 
tions, and after polishing to separate them by a 
very ingenious machine; but it has been found 
more economical to keep each size by itself. 

From the polishing tub the pins are carried to 
the "sticker," where they fall from a hopper on 

[88] 



How Pins are Made 



an inclined plane in which are a number of slits. 
The pins catch in these slits and, hanging by their 
heads, slide down the incline to the apparatus 
which inserts them in the paper. 

By an ingenious device a pin is taken from 
each slit, and all the pins are inserted at once in 
the two ridges which have been crimped in the 
paper by a wheel 
that holds it in place. 
While this wheel 
crimps the paper it 
also spaces the rows, 
so that when filled 
with pins the paper 
will fold up properly. 

This whole ma- 
chine is so delicate in its action that a single bent 
or imperfect pin will cause the machine to stop 
feeding; yet its operation is so rapid that one 
machine will stick ninety thousand pins an hour. 

As the long strip of paper on which the pins 
are stuck comes from the machine it is cut into 
proper lengths by girls, who then fold and pack 
the papers in bundles ready for shipment. 

Harry Platt. 
[89] 




THE USE OF NATURAL GAS 

The earliest Jesuit explorers of the Ohio Valley 
discovered and reported columns of fire issuing 
from the ground. In 1775 George Washington 
sought to have set apart and reserved to the pub- 
lic forever a square mile of land in the Kanawha 
Valley, in the center of which was a burning gas 
spring which he regarded as one of the greatest 
of our national wonders. 

The first use of natural gas for domestic pur- 
poses in America was made in 1821 in the village 
of Fredonia, Chautauqua County, New York, where 
enough of it was collected and piped to supply 
thirty burners. The village inn was illuminated 
by this gas when Lafayette passed through Fre- 
donia in 1824. At the same time a small light- 
house on Lake Erie warned vessels from the coast 
with a flame of the same product. 

Natural gas is found in connection with petro- 
leum and salt-water deposits, and it was the gas 
that rushed from a salt well, bored in western 

[90] 



The Use of Natural Gas 



Virginia in 1841, that was first used as fuel in a 
furnace. Here it supplied the heat necessary for 
boiling and evaporating the salt water, and enabled 
the owners of the well to 
make salt a little cheaper 
than other well owners. 
From the earliest 
development of the 
Pennsylvania oil fields 
a portion of the gas that 
generally accompanies 
the flow of oil from a 
well has been used to 
heat the boilers of the 
pumping engines, and 
to w^arm and light the 
dwellings in their vicin- 
ity. For many years, 
however, it was oil which 
the drillers were seeking, and they allowed mil- 
lions of cubic feet of gas to escape or burn to 
waste daily, with little thought of its value. If it 
was lighted at the ends of tall pipes for the illumi- 
nation of village streets or dark forest roads, no 
one thought of turning it off at sunrise. 

[91] 




Gas Light 



Industries of To-Day 



In 1874 it was discovered that this fuel could 
be used more effectively and cheaply than coal in 
iron works, glass works, and other manufacturing 
establishments. It was not until 1883, however, 
that the enormous volumes of gas supplied by the 
Murraysville field were directed through twenty 
miles of iron pipe to Pittsburg, and offered as fuel 
for the mills, factories, and dwellings of that city. 

With its use for this purpose the manufacturing 
business of that large city was revolutionized, its 
domestic comfort was greatly increased, and its 
whole aspect was changed. Gas not only fur- 
nishes a more regular and intense heat than coal, 
but furnishes it at a reduced cost, and does away 
with the labor of handling coal, building fires, 
keeping them supplied with fuel, and disposing of 
the accumulated ashes and cinders. 

It was not found necessary to make any mate- 
rial change in the construction of furnaces, open 
grates, or stoves. Those built for coal are still 
used for gas. The only difference is that, instead 
of kindlings, coal, ashes, cinders, soot, and smoke, 
there is a small pipe that issues from the floor and 
enters the grate. A stopcock is turned, the gas 
is ignited, and any degree of heat required can be 

[92] 



The Use of Natural Gas 



obtained at once and regulated at will. When no 
longer needed the flame is instantly extinguished 
and all care of the fire is at an end. With a good 
draught there is perfect combustion and no odor. 

Natural gas is found in both sandstone and 
limestone formations, at depths ranging from a 
few hundred to two thousand feet, and is reached 
by wells bored in the same way as for oil. In 
fact, it often happens that a well sunk for oil 
yields gas instead. This was formerly regarded 
as a misfortune, but the gas has become as valu- 
able as the oil, and drilling for gas is a well-estab- 
lished business. 

Striking gas is a somewhat thrilling affair. 
As the ponderous drill crashes through the thin 
remaining crust of slate, and liberates the giant 
imprisoned for ages beneath, the column of gas 
leaps up the five-inch pipe with such force as vio- 
lently to project the heavy boring tools, weighing 
a ton or more, through the derrick frame. The 
gas, with a screaming roar, springs a hundred feet 
into the air, a column, of bluish vapor. Sometimes 
it tears the casing of cast-iron pipe from the well, 
and hurls after it volleys of earth and rock, mingled 
with jets of oil and salt water. 

[93] 



Industries of To-Day 



Of course not all gas wells begin business in 
this boisterous manner. Most of them are of com- 
paratively gentle flow and easy to manage, though 
such scenes as the one described are not uncom- 
mon in new fields. 

The gas giant is fond of fire, and the moment he 
is loosed from his underground prison he begins 
eagerly to search for it. If it is found under the 
boiler of the pumping engine, in the bowl of a 
workman's pipe, or in sparks struck from flinty 
rocks, the pillar of vapor instantly becomes a 
column of flame, throv/ing out an intense heat, 
devouring and withering everything in its vicin- 
ity, and at night lighting miles of the surrounding 
country with its angry glow. It may burn for 
weeks, months, or even for years, before its ter- 
rible strength is so exhausted that the torrent of 
flame can be extinguished and its energies sub- 
dued to the service of man. 

During the past forty years the quantity of gas 
thus wasted has been enormous beyond belief or 
power to compute. But this waste is now almost 
wholly checked. Devices have been perfected 
and adopted for seizing and controlling the vapor 
upon its first appearance in the well, and before 

[94] 



The Use of Natural Gas 



it has drawn a single breath of air, without which 
its ignition is impossible. 

Even the vast columns of flame that so long 
bafBed the efforts of the gas men can now be 




Drilling a Gas Well 

extinguished, so that the gushers and roarers of 
new gas fields, with their pressure of four or five 
hundred pounds to the square inch, are conducted 
through a network of pipe lines to the scenes of 
their future usefulness without loss of time or 
money. 

[95] 



Industries of To-Day 



A singular spectacle was afforded by a well 
bored at Gambier, Ohio. The Vv^ell, not having 
been tubed, repeatedly filled with water, which 
was ejected by the rush of gas at regular inter- 
vals of one minute. An intermittent fountain of 
mingled gas and water one hundred and twenty 
feet high was thus formed. In winter the derrick 
above the well became so completely incased in 
ice as to form a transparent chimney. By cutting 
a hole at the base of this ice chimney, and ignit- 
ing the gas as it rushed upward, an effect was 
produced that at night was weird and beautiful 
beyond description. 

Another fascinating picture is made by the min- 
iature aurora borealis that appears in the vicinity 
of blazing gas wells on clear, cold winter nights, 
when the air is charged with minute ice crystals. 
The darkness glows and sparkles with broad 
bands, streamers, and brilliant points of light 
reflected from the innumerable tiny frost dia- 
monds that dart to and fro, waver, disappear, 
and flash into brightness again in a most bewil- 
dering manner. 

The reservoirs of natural gas were once thought 
to be inexhaustible. It was even maintained that 

[96] 



The Use of Natural Gas 



I 



the gas is produced in the underground labora- 
tories faster than it can be used. This view is 
not now held. Wells have been exhausted and 
have ceased to flow, and often the supply from 
a new one is diminished as soon as another is 
sunk in its vicinity. However, no community 
which has once enjoyed the blessings of a gas 
fuel will willingly return to the use of coal. 

Gas has become almost a necessity, and human 
ingenuity is now at work in a thousand directions 
to invent methods for producing it cheaply and 
abundantly from coal or other materials in order 
that, when the natural supply is exhausted, an 
equally good artificial supply may take its place. 
Communities which cannot obtain natural gas are 
already demanding an artificial product that shall 
give them equal advantages with localities sup- 
plied by nature with this perfect fuel. 

Gas stored in portable tanks is being used 
as fuel beneath the boilers of locomotives and 
steamboat engines, and indications point to its 
substitution for coal on a still wider scale than 
at present. 



Kirk Munroe. 



[97] 



ADOBE AND ITS USES 

I HAVE frequently watched the making of adobes 
by the natives of New Mexico. Adobes are sun- 
dried bricks about twelve inches long, eight wide, 
and two deep. They are used in place of kiln- 
seasoned bricks and stone, and for many purposes 
for which lumber is used in a wooded section. 
Fences, for instance, are largely made of adobes ; 
corrals, gardens, orchards, yards, churches, schools, 
and convents are inclosed by walls built of adobes. 

These mud walls are often seen with cacti 
planted thickly on their tops, as a double security 
against thieves and other trespassers. When cacti 
are not easily procurable, the walls are defended 
by broken glass bottles imbedded in the top 
round of bricks before they are thoroughly dry. 

On lines where protection is not called for I 
have seen the tops of these fences picturesquely 
ornamented with bright flowering plants, such as 
scarlet and yellow cacti, the wild sunflower, the 
Spanish bayonet, and the Mexican lily. 

[98] 



Adobe and its Uses 



When a house is to be built, an addition to be 
made to one, an oven or a fireplace to be shaped, or 
a piece of ground to be inclosed, the enterprising 
Mexican assembles his helpers as at a primitive 




Making Adobe 

house-raising. The first move is to spade up a patch 
of ground, often a portion of his own front yard. 
Sometimes, as an act of friendliness, the adobe 
maker gets permission to spade up a neighbor's 
yard or a vacant lot near the building site. 



Industries of To-Day 



The ground being well broken, water is brought 
on and the mixing is begun. As the surface 
before the breaking was in all probability but 
carelessly swept, many bits not essential to good 
bricks get mixed in the mud, — bits of glass, stone, 
pottery, tin, wire, chips, rags, etc. But it is not 
in the purpose of the adobe makers to use other 
materials than water and the soil everywhere 
found. 

There is a little preliminary mixing with hoe 
and spade, but shortly the workers strip to the 
waist, bare the feet, roll above the knees whatever 
there may be of trousers legs, and walk bravely 
into the mud. Standing in the brown mixture of 
precisely his own color, the expressionless, statu- 
esque Mexican might by an easy reach of fancy 
be regarded as an outgrowth of the adobe mud. 
Then hands and feet reenforce spade and hoe until 
the mixing is complete. 

Rough wooden molds are now filled with the 
mud and scraped level by the hands. The molds 
are carried away a short distance and the molded 
mud is tipped out on the ground. 

There the adobes lie for days or weeks, sun- 
ning, while the owners are sunning themselves 

[loo] 



Adobe and its Uses 



against adobe walls centuries old, it may be. 
There is no fear that the blocks will be spoiled 
by rain in this white and bright land where the 
sun shines three hundred and sixty-five days in 
the year. 

The mud bricks being sufficiently baked on 
one side, they are turned over, and in time on 
edge, until both sides and edges have had the 
effect of a sufficient period of direct sunshine. 

An Eastern brickmaker would regard these 
adobe bricks as rough, uneven, and unsightly. But 
they have their merits. Their making does not 
call for any skilled labor ; they can be made in a 
day, dried without expense, and can be laid by 
inexperienced hands. They form such inexpen- 
sive building material that the poorest man can 
have his own house. I have seen many a com- 
fortable adobe house of four rooms, well plastered 
inside and outside, erected at a cost of five hun- 
dred dollars. 

I choose the adjective " comfortable " advisedly. 
Without the shelter of a tree, in a land of peren- 
nial sunshine, an adobe house furnishes a com- 
plete protection from summer heat, however high 
the mercury may be. The earth walls never get 

[lOl] 



Industries of To-Day 



heated through in such a dimate as New Mexico's ; 
neither do they ever get chilled through. In the 
shelter of an adobe house you can forget that 
there is winter cold or summer heat. 

The Mexican peasant builds an unpretentious 
lodge, but for comfort it will stand comparison 
with the peasant house of any land. He lays the 
adobes on the bare earth, builds up two or three 
feet, then waits some days to insure the dryness 
of the walls, builds a few more feet, and again 
waits. When his wall has reached a height of 
ten or twelve feet he stops. Then he lays on the 
beams or rafters, usually of the unbarked trunks 
of pifion trees not fully grown. The pinon is the 
mountain pine of the nut-bearing variety. 

The rafters are not of uniform length. Some 
project a foot over the wall, others more than a 
yard, furnishing a place for drying plants, or for 
the storing of hay, or for the roosting of Mexican 
boys ambitious enough to climb to the roof. 

These rafters are the support for the thick 
planks or boards laid closely across, which are to 
receive the dry adobe dirt. This is piled on to 
the thickness of about thirty inches. It makes a 
dry, warm roof, on which, in the course of time, 

[102] 



Adobe and its Uses 



chance seeds take root, causing a little forest of 
plants to spring up on the low roofs. 

The dirt roofs are safe so long as the timbers 
are sound, and the timbers, being measurably 
protected from damp and air, remain good for 
long periods. But ants sometimes find out the 
rafters of a house and honeycomb them, making 
no visible sign of their presence. The timber 
then suddenly gives way, letting down the mass 
of earth, imperiling life and injuring the house- 
hold belongings. 

One might think that the adobe house would 
be a perishable structure. In a land of rains, of 
much freezing and thawing, it might be ; but there 
are adobe houses in New Mexico and Arizona 
centuries old, and as good as when first built. 

Some adobe houses have w^alls eight feet thick. 
These were built not only for protection against 
heat and cold, but also as defenses against Indians 
and other enemies. 

The adobe house is the outcome of ages of 
experience in a climate of peculiar conditions. 
Even the wealthy Mexican of to-day, educated it 
may be in Washington or St. Louis, builds pref- 
erably an adobe house. If one is built on a stone 

[103] 



Industries of To-Day 



foundation, with hooded windows, far-projecting 
roof, and with balconies or portals, there is no more 
comfortable, weatherproof, picturesque dwelling. 
For a small expenditure a house can be built in 
which not an hour of discomfort from heat or 
cold need be spent in all the yean 

Sarah Winter Kellogg. 




[104] 



THE MAKING OF FIREWORKS 

The American Fourth of July means more 
than an exhibition of patriotism and a day of 
boisterous fun. It means a livehhood for about 
five thousand people in the United States, and 
for many times that number in China and Japan. 

In Amxerica are made the Roman candles, the 
pin wheels, the rockets ; in China, the firecrackers 
and "rattan" bombs (large firecrackers in which 
strips of bamboo are substituted for paper); in 
Japan, the finest of fancy fireworks. 

Other nations have often tried to compete with 
the Chinese in the manufacture of firecrackers, 
but in each instance they have been obliged to 
give it up. They cannot afford to make them 
and sell them at the price for which Chinese 
firecrackers are sold. 

A box of firecrackers of the ordinary size con- 
tains forty packages, each one made up of sixty- 
four firecrackers. After these twenty-five hundred 
and more firecrackers have been braided into 

[105] 



Industries of To-Day 



packages covered with bright red and gold paper 
labels; after they have been packed in a box 
which in its turn is labeled and then wrapped in 
matting ; after an import duty of one hundred per 
cent and the freight over the thousands of miles 
of sea and land lying between China and New 
York have been paid, — the firecrackers are sold 
at wholesale for from ninety to ninety-five cents a 
box. To add to the wonder of the thing, every 
one of the Chinaman's firecrackers is made entirely 
by hand. Hundreds of thousands of boxes are 
imported into the United States every year. 

The most delicate and altogether wonderful fire- 
works are the bombs made by the Japanese to be 
exploded in the daytime. These bombs are some- 
times spherical in shape and sometimes cylindrical, 
and occasionally the two forms are combined in a 
cylinder with a ball at one end. 

Fired from steel mortars the bombs explode in 
mid-air. After the smoke has cleared away, a 
figure of some sort goes floating off in the upper 
air. Two enormous dragons twist and turn, as if 
in mortal combat, until St. George, in the guise 
of their own fiery tongues, bids them begone, and 
they vanish in a puff of smoke. Perhaps the 

[io6] 



The Making of Fireworks 



Japanese goddess of mirth hilariously waves a 
little three-cornered flag with a square hole in it 
and smiles benignly down until she has sailed 
away out of sight. The combinations produced 
in these day fireworks are almost endless. 

The figures are bags made of very thin, air- 
tight paper. The explosion of the bomb inflates 
them with hot air, and there comes into opera- 
tion the principle of which w^e take advantage in 
" fire balloons " — which, by the way, are made 
in a bewildering variety of shapes and colors 
by the Japanese. 

Very beautiful and almost unaccountable effects 
are produced at night also by the Japanese 
bomb makers. Perhaps, after the bomb explodes, 
a gigantic cluster of grapes hangs suspended in 
the sky, the colors changing gradually from a 
dark, rich purple to a brilliant silver or gold, and 
finally fading away, one grape at a time. The 
Japanese in olden times said that when the grapes 
were gone they had been plucked by the gods; 
and during times of peace and plenty — which 
were unfortunately few — they often offered these 
fiery delicacies to the particular god or goddess to 
whom they attributed their good fortune. 

[107] 



Industries of To-Day 



Brilliant " cloud pictures " are also made by the 
Japanese by exploding bombs. The sky is at 
first lighted up with a dull glow, which slowly 
concentrates into a silvery cloud. This changes 
color many times, and finally rolls open like a 
scroll and disappears, leaving in its place dozens 
of tiny floating umbrellas, each with a little flame 
at the bottom of its handle which burns upward, 
fitfully illuminating the others and itself as they 
slowly circle toward the earth, until they are all 
consumed. Sometimes many little lighted lan- 
terns float about until they are " snatched by the 
little gods to light them to bed." 

All the " set pieces" displayed on the Fourth — 
fiery portraits of George Washington and spirited 
spark pictures of the " boys of '76 " — are made in 
America. 

Every one knows what a Roman candle is, but 
few know how it is made. First of all in the 
making comes the pasteboard cylinder, which is 
plugged up at one end with clay. After the clay 
comes a small charge of powder ; then a " star " 
is pushed tight down on the powder, and charges 
of powder and "stars" alternate until the cylin- 
der is filled. Then a fuse is attached which 

[108] 



The Making of Fireworks 



communicates with the powder nearest the top of 
the cyHnder, which, when it is exploded, sends its 
" star " saihng upward. A fuse running through 
the candle connects the other charges of powder 
with the first, and explodes them one at a time, each 
one shooting out the star which is next above it. 

The stars are made of chemical mixtures which 
vary with the colors that are produced. A red 
star is sometimes made by mixing four parts of 
dry nitrate of strontia and fifteen parts of pulver- 
ized gunpowder. Copper filings change the color 
to green. Rosin, salt, and a small quantity of 
amber make it yellow. Small particles of zinc 
change it to blue ; and another and perhaps better 
red can be made by using a mixture of lampblack 
and niter. The white stars in the cheap "one- 
ball candles " are merely balls of cotton soaked 
with benzine. 

Scarcely less indispensable to the Fourth of 
July celebration is the skyrocket. But hundreds 
of years before a Fourth of July celebration was 
thought of the skyrocket was used as a warlike 
projectile. We are indebted to the Chinese for 
this also, though all the rockets that are now used 
in America are of American manufacture. 

[109] 



Industries of To-Day 



The rocket was used for purposes of war in 
China as long ago as the early part of the eighth 
century. It was soon adopted by the Europeans, 
who, however, up to the first part of the present 
century used it mainly for signaling and as a 
means of setting fire to besieged cities. Many 
improvements have been introduced, and rockets 
are made which will carry a five-pound shot six 
thousand yards. The motive power is the pressure 
against the air of gases generated by the burning 
of the composition which the rocket contains. 
The gases escape through holes or vents in the 
base of the cylinder containing the composition, 
and thus give to the rocket a forward or upward 
motion, as the case may be. The long stick or tail 
is added to keep the projectile steady in its course. 

The composition with which the ordinary exhi- 
bition rocket is filled is made of niter, charcoal, 
and sulphur; and the brilliant sparks and stars 
of the long, fiery trail are iron or steel filings or 
borings, made red-hot by the burning composition 
and expelled with the gases. These form what is 
known in the trade as " Chinese brilliant fire." 



Edward Marshall. 
[no] 



IN AN ICE FACTORY 

Signboards bearing the legend " Boston Ice " 
over the doors of cellars and other places where 
ice is kept for sale have long been a familiar 
sight in the South. During the last twenty years, 
however, nearly every Southern town of impor- 
tance has estabHshed its own factory for making 
ice, and the process has become so perfect and 
cheap that the artificial ice competes with the 
natural article shipped from the New England 
states. 

The cost of transportation and handling, and 
the enormous waste by melting, all serve to make 
"Boston ice" costly to the consumer in the South. 
This has stimulated the invention of irriproved 
methods of making artificial ice. 

On his first visit to an ice factory one who is 
not familiar with ice-making machinery will be 
surprised to see large steam engines and boilers, 
with great piles of coal, and will wonder how the 
use of fire and steam can assist in producing cold ; 

[III] 



Industries of To-Day 



but a little understanding of the chemistry of the 
process will enable him to perceive the need of 
such machinery. 

All objects are pervaded by latent or insensible 
heat. The capacity for retaining this heat varies 
in different substances. One solid retains more 
than another, liquids more than solids, and gases 
more than liquids. If gases be compressed in 
volume their heat-retaining capacity will be 
reduced in proportion. 

If ten parts of gas be compressed into one, the 
heat of the other nine parts is evolved and driven 
off, and the remaining tenth loses some of its 
heat, because its increased density has reduced 
its capacity for retaining its latent heat. 

Nearly all of the known gases may be com- 
pressed until they assume the liquid form. Am- 
moniacal gas, when subjected to a pressure of 
about one hundred and fifty pounds to the square 
inch, becomes a liquid. Should the pressure be 
now removed, the liquid ammonia will instantly 
rush, or expand, into the gaseous form again. In 
doing so it becomes intensely cold, and conse- 
quently absorbs heat from everything which is 
in contact with it. 

[112] 



In an Ice Factory 



If this expansion into gas be allowed to take 
place in pipes immersed in brine, it will cause the 
brine to become cold enough to freeze fresh water 
in cans suspended in the brine, and to convert the 
fresh water in the cans into solid ice. Where the 
object is only to cool brew^eries, ships, or storage 
rooms for meats, the cold brine is pumped and 
made to circulate through a series of pipes in the 
rooms intended to be kept cool. 

The greater part of the ammonia and ammoni- 
acal salts industrially used is obtained from the 
dry distillation of coals, as in the making of coal 
gas, where the ammonia is a by-product, that is, 
a product obtained incidentally in the manufacture 
of something else. 

Water will absorb a large proportion of ammo- 
nia gas, and the solution is called aqua ammojiia, 
or hartshorn. The liquid ammonia used in the 
manufacture of ice is ammonia gas deprived of 
water and compressed into iron cylinders until It 
becomes a liquid. 

In the factories which freeze the water in cans 
there is provided a very large brine chamber, or 
vat, so deep that the cans may be immersed in it 
nearly to their tops. The cans are about four 



Industries of To-Day 



feet deep, and are made of galvanized iron. They 
are filled with pure water, and let down into the 
brine through openings in the top of the vat. 
Between the rows of water cans are tiers of iron 
pipes running back and forth through the brine ; 
and throughout these pipes the expansion of gas 
takes place, cooling the brine to ten degrees 
above zero. 

Under the influence of this intense cold ice soon 
begins to form on the inside and bottom of the 
cans. It becomes thicker and thicker, until it is 
finally a solid mass of clear, crystal ice, usually 
with a small core of opaque or snowy ice through 
the center. 

As fast as their contents are frozen the cans are 
removed by a special lifting apparatus, and dipped 
for a minute into hot water to loosen the block 
from the can. Then it slides out easily and is 
stored away for use. 

There are factories conducted on a somewhat 
different plan, in which the ice is made to form 
on iron plates in cakes weighing several tons 
each. In these factories the brine chamber is in 
the shape of double partition walls of iron'"plates 
about four inches apart. The partition divides a 

[114] 



In an Ice Factory 



deep wooden water tank into two equal rooms, 
and in the narrow space between the iron plates 
the brine and pipes for the ammonia gas are placed. 

The rooms are filled with pure ^' 
water, which is in contact with the 




brine chamber on one side. Ice soon begins to 
form on the iron side plates, precisely in the same 
way as on a pond or river, except that the sheet of 
ice is vertical instead of horizontal. Only about 
half of the water in the rooms is allowed to freeze. 

[115] 



Industries of To-Day 



When the cakes of ice are considered to be of 
sufHcient thickness, the cold brine is pumped out 
of its compartment into another tank, and its place 
is filled with water of ordinary temperature. 

This soon thaws the ice cakes loose from the 
plates, and allows the mass of ice to be lifted out 
by hoisting machinery. The ice is then passed 
on to the sawing machine, which divides it into 
blocks weighing about two hundred pounds each. 

The only essential difference in the two systems 
described Hes in the fact that in the can method 
all the water is frozen, and if there is any impurity 
in the water the ice will contain it. In the plate 
method the ice is formed entirely from one side 
of the cake, and only about one half of the water 
is allowed to congeal into solid ice. 

Since water in freezing tends to purify itself 
in the way in which the natural ice of ponds and 
rivers purifies itself, the plate method more nearly 
resembles the natural w^ay, and the ice show^s its 
characteristic structure. 

After having performed its work in cooling the 
brine, the expanded gas is drawn from the pipes 
by means of powerful steam pumps; it is then 
compressed into a coil of iron pipes kept immersed 

["6] 



In an Ice Factory 



in a tank of cold, running water. This compres- 
sion of the expanded gas requires very heavy 
machinery, and the operation develops much heat, 
which is absorbed by the running water. 

In other words, the expanding gas, having 
absorbed much heat from the brine, and having 
been made cold by this means, must be deprived 
of the heat thus gained by compression again into 
a coil surrounded by running water, which takes 
away the heat as fast as it is developed by the 
compression. 

Being now restored to the liquid form, the gas 
is ready to go on another round, and may be used 
again and again. The only loss of gas sustained 
is from leaky joints in the pipes. 

It is a curious sight to see these pipes and pumps 
coated, even in the hottest weather, with a thick 
layer of snow-white frost, so thick that it may be 
scraped off with the hands and squeezed into a 
snowball. The brine pumps soon lose their char- 
acteristic shape and are scarcely recognizable, 
looking more like a fantastic snowdrift than a 
piece of iron machinery. 

Sometimes we see fine fruit or a bouquet of 
flowers which has been so placed in the water as 



Industries of To-Day 



to become frozen in the center of a large block 
of crystal ice. Such objects form beautiful orna- 
ments while they last. 

Many people believe that coal is really at the 
foundation of cheap ice, and that it will presently 
be cheaper to use coal to make ice than to use it 
in transporting ice to the place where it is wanted. 
Artificial ice is already produced in considerable 
quantities in districts where natural ice is also 
cut for the market. 



Thomas C. Harris. 



[1.8] 



A BOSTON MARKET 

While the first of the sleepy milkmen are going 
their rounds, and the luxurious man lies fathoms 
deep in one of his half-dozen morning naps, the 
markets which feed great cities are teeming with 
bustle and interest. If the citizen of Boston 
who finds a comfortable breakfast on his table is 
curious to trace its source beyond the kitchen, he 
may rise at cockcrow and visit the old historic 
Faneuil Hall Market owned by his city. 

He will hardly be among the earliest comers, 
however, for the wagons of the market gardeners, 
laden with fruit and vegetables, often start at 
nightfall, and sometimes at four o'clock in the 
afternoon, that they may be at the market betimes 
next morning. Many of these men drive in from 
towns immediately adjoining the city; but some 
of them come from places thirty-five miles away, 
seeking short cuts that they may be first at the 
ferries and first in reachinor their destination and 
securing standing ground there. 

["9] 



Industries of To-Day 



Arrived at the market, whether at midnight or 
in the morning darkness, the men arrange their 
wagons in short, orderly rows beside the great 
building, so that plenty of space is left in which 
to drive and walk between the groups. Then 
the horses are unharnessed and stabled, and the 
carefully covered wagons left in charge of the night 
watchmen, who also guard the boxes and barrels 
left outside the building, while the sleepy drivers 
find some comfortable corner to drowse in until 
the moment of action. 

With the first peep of light they are back at 
their posts, and begin to uncover their loads, 
chatting together, exchanging jokes, and talking 
over the probable market prices for the day. 
~ Presently appear the picturesque figures of 
women, with rough, uncovered hair, tattered 
dresses, and faded shawls, each bearing a capa- 
cious basket on one arm. They wander about, 
hoping to pick up a discarded vegetable here and 
there, and waiting for the barrels of refuse to be 
brought out from the stalls within. 

When these barrels are deposited on the side- 
walk an eager search begins, and the baskets are 
speedily enriched v/ith cauliflowers which show 

[120] 



A Boston Market 



the first brown specks of decay, bunches of celery 
containing one or two perfect stalks, and sweet 
potatoes partially spongy from age or misfortune. 










'"1 i'": 'Sr 'r^" \ix--''nii\-'^ '- 



t:.-rrl":^^':r 












^i:tM^--^^^^^^- 






Faneuil Hall Market 

With every increasing ray of light come wagons 
from the provision stores and smaller markets of 
the city, to select from the waiting carts large 
quantities of the vegetables and fruit needed for 
their daily sales. The scene becomes animated ; 
the broad street is alive with voices. On Friday 
especially, the day when suburban stores send in 
for their Saturday's stock of provisions, it is 

[I2I] 



Industries of To-Day 



difficult to find one s way about among the carts 
without josthng eager bargainers. 

Perhaps the most interesting season to visit the 
market is during the summer or early autumn, 
when thousands of berry boxes or great loads of 
peaches arrive daily. A few firms sell their fruit 
by auction, and this naturally adds a lively excite- 
ment to the scene. Groups of Italian owners of 
fruit stands are on the spot betimes. One market- 
man says of them, "An Italian starts a stand on 
nothing, but in a month he comes down here and 
buys whole loads of fruit for cash." 

It is in the autumn that the market wagons are 
most delightful to the artistic eye. Pale green 
cabbages, yellow squashes, piles of celery in varie ' 
green, and golden carrots seem actually to light 
the air. 

Meanwhile, as this fruit and vegetable traffic is 
going on at one side of the market, the meat has 
arrived on the other, and is rapidly carried into 
stall and cellar. Great white-covered carts, like 
emigrant wagons, stand there, packed to the very 
top with pink and white carcasses ; and men 
adorned by burlap mantles fastened with skewers 
are busily tossing them into their destined places. 

[122] 



A Boston Market 




Selling from the Carts 



At sunrise a gong strikes, and the market 
proper, the great building lined with stalls flank- 
ing a central walk, is opened to trade. Then the 



Industries of To-Day 



bustle within is scarcely exceeded by that without. 
Men hurry about, drawing on their white frocks 
and overalls, and begin to remove great carcasses 
of meat from the sacking which has protected 
them from dust through the night, or hang on 
huge iron hooks the meat which has just been 
brought in from the storehouses. 

One man is assorting his stock of eggs by test- 
ing their freshness. A lighted candle is placed 
in the sixle of his tgg box, and over this he holds 
each egg for a second and looks through it before 
passing it on into its appropriate place. The 
degree of clearness shown through the shell indi- 
cates to his practiced eye the probable age of the 
egg and its state of freshness. 

Meantime, while food of all sorts is magically 
appearing in such profusion, comes a smaller 
dealer whose stock is as fresh and sweet as the 
early morning. This is the water-cress woman, a 
slight little creature, who comes in tugging a big 
basket filled with bunches of cress, dark green in 
its freshness and dripping with moisture. This 
she sells by the dozen bunches at the different 
stalls. Then, bringing an odor sweeter than that 
from "Araby the blest " to those who remember 

[124] 



A Boston Market 



grandmother's garden, comes a young girl with a 
basket full of the mints, catnip for the kitty, and 
sage and sweet marjoram. 

Outside the market are new phases of interest 
everywhere. A clear, triumphant sound breaks 
upon the air. It is the crow of chanticleer, and 
looking about, after recovering from the first 
surprise of hearing a barnyard echo in a city 
street, one notices several rough coops containing 
live fowls. Some of these are putting their red- 
combed heads through the slats, and gazing about 
in a very inquiring manner, and one is preening 
her feathers as if to be in gala costume for the 
sacrifice. 

But where do the fish stalls of the market 
obtain their daily supplies? To find an answer 
to that question one must walk to the wharf. 
There boats are coming in laden with the fish, 
which is bought on the spot by wholesale dealers, 
and not only supplied to various local markets but 
also packed and sent away to other towns and 
cities. The wharf itself, rather slimy with fish 
drippings, is made lively by men running about 
with large handcarts filled with the fish which 
they have just obtained from the boats. 

[125] 



Industries of To-Day 



The previous process of loading the carts is a 
rapid and picturesque one. Large baskets of cod 
or mackerel are filled on board the little boats, 
swung up and over the side by means of a rope, 
and dumped into the cart. The man who fills 
the basket is hardy and sailorlike, clad in a short 
jacket or a colored jersey, and the motion with 
which he spears several fish at a time on a small 
fork is suggestive of the hayfield. Other boats 
have come in bringing clams, and these are shov- 
eled into small baskets, dipped in water to be 
rinsed, and then handed dripping to the wharf. 

Returning to the market, we shall find it full 
of bustle and interest all day long. The market- 
men outside, as soon as their stock is sold, drive 
homeward, sometimes quite early, but often, on 
days when trade is slow, not until late in the day. 

The market itself closes at five o'clock, except 

on Saturday night, when it is open until nine. 

A gong strikes fifteen minutes before the closing 

hour to warn the keepers of stalls to do their 

daily cleaning up, and when it strikes again its 

warning note embodies the old nursery rhyme : 

Home again, home again, market is done. 

Alice Brown. 
[126] 



THE MORNING PAPER 

The word " editor " is one of the vaguest and 
most elastic nouns in the English language. In 
small places it is popularly used to describe all 
the men about a newspaper office who are not 
printers. I can remember one case in which the 
oldest printer — a tall and dignified man with a 
white beard — was supposed generally to be "one 
of the editors " as well. Even in great cities 
much confusion exists about the meaning of this 
word and its proper use, and people speak loosely 
of many men as editors who are not editors at all. 

Properly speaking there is one man who is the 
editor of a paper. The others are his editorial 
assistants and his heads of departments, who for 
convenience are called the news editor, the tele- 
graph editor, the foreign editor, the city editor, or 
whatever it may be ; but they are only editors with 
a qualifying adjective in front of the title; then 
come the reporters, who are not even editors with 
an adjective. 

[127] 



Industries of To-Day 



The growth of the mammoth modern daily 
paper has created a new officer in the journaHstic 
hive, called the managing editor. In many offices 
he is also the editor; in others there is a nominal 
editor in chief, either the proprietor of the paper 
or a prominent politician, who turns over most of 
his duties and powers to the managing editor; in 
still other cases a political editor and a practical 
managing editor work harmoniously side by side. 

On some journals the managing editor is a 
visible figure, known by name to everybody, and 
he enjoys popular credit for his work. On others 
he keeps in the background and is rarely heard of 
outside the newspaper walls. He is like the chief 
of staff of an army, who must be equally able to 
understand and execute the plans of a good gen- 
eral or to take charge of the whole battle under 
a weak or disabled one, and who in either case 
is the busiest man in the field. 

Let us get acquainted with one of these masters 
of a great New York morning newspaper and 
gather an idea of the dimensions of the burden 
which he, like Sisyphus, rolls daily up the hill. 
To simplify the case we will take a journal on 
which the managing editor has full control. 

[128] 



The Morning Paper 



His working day at the office begins at noon. 
Before this time he is supposed to have read at 
least his own paper, and perhaps one or two 
others. This, which to other men comes as a 




In an Editor's Room 

pleasant after-breakfast recreation, is to him a 
matter of business. It is his preliminary survey 
of the ground upon which the engagement is to 
be begun that day, although no man alive can 
tell where it may not drift before night. 

[129] 



Industries of To-Day 



The hour from twelve to one he gives to his 
private secretary, who is generally a stenographer. 
First of all the morning's letters are to be attended 
to. The private secretary has been at work upon 
the correspondence for an hour or two, so that 
the managing editor is troubled only with letters 
which it is important that he should see. He 
reads or hears them, dictates an answer where it 
is needed, and gives directions about others. 

Next he gets reports from the secretary and 
the exchange readers as to the position of his 
paper among the, other papers that morning. 
Sheets of clippings arranged for comparison 
enable him to see wherein his reporters have 
distanced their rivals and wherein they have 
been beaten in the race for news. At the same 
time he sees clippings from papers all over the 
country commenting on his paper, its policy and 
its general features. 

At one o'clock it is time for him to talk with his 
chief subordinates, that is, the heads of depart- 
ments. They are summoned in, one by one ; and 
he learns what assignments have already been 
made, and gets a general idea of what the main 
features of the paper are likely to be. 

[130] 



The Morning Paper 



He makes suggestions upon this information, 
pointing out the matters upon which stress is to be 
laid and directing further assignments of special 
reporters to certain lines of work. He then dic- 
tates and sends out his first batch of dispatches 
to the paper's correspondents at Washington, 
London, Chicago, San Francisco, — wherever there 
is a point of contact with this news that has been 
discussed, — ordering inquiries and reports. Fifty 
or more of these dispatches may be sent at this 
time. Then he has a hurried lunch. 

From two to three the managing editor gener- 
ally sees people by appointment. Of course there 
are certain important persons who can secure an 
audience at practically any time, but for the 
general public restrictions are necessary. 

Then comes a half hour devoted to a task which 
will surprise the ordinary layman. Whether it be 
Monday or Wednesday or Friday, this half hour 
is given to preparations for the Sunday paper, 
— a regular charge upon the time of every week 
day. The Sunday paper has grown to be a veri- 
table magazine, generally with serial stories, fre- 
quently with illustrations, and always with a great 
mass of special literary and news features, foreign 



Industries of To-Day 



correspondence, poems, reviews, and exceptional 
matter of all sorts. 

About half past three the first of the afternoon 
papers come in. The managing editor, going 
over these, now sees the coming paper more 
clearly outlined, — particularly as to the editorial 
page. He talks now with his leader writers, 
directs articles on such and such topics, and dis- 
courses more or less briefly to each on the way 
the subject should be treated, and on the paper's 
attitude toward any new questions involved. 

All this time he has been subjected to frequent 
interruptions by subordinates bringing in fresh 
matters of news interest and asking for instruc- 
tions. As the afternoon wears on these interrup- 
tions multiply. The telegraphic bulletins from 
remote correspondents, too, which began earlier 
in the day, are now falling thick as autumn leaves. 
They are read and piled up according to impor- 
tance, pending decision. Naturally each of these 
local representatives regards his own particular 
sensation as the chief feature of the day's news. 
His zeal is not lessened, either, by the probable 
fact that the longer the account he can get printed 
the larger his pay will be, — for all the far-away 



The Morning Paper 



correspondents of a paper, save those of course in 
great news centers hke Washington and London, 
are paid by the column. 

It is now nearly six o'clock. The editor has 
received from his leader writers the most of their 
writing. He has edited it and put it into the box, 
along with other matter for the editorial page, to 
be sent up to the composing room as a start for 
the printers, who begin work at six. He has also 
sent up sundry " reprint " matter, or extracts from 
other papers, which will prevent the printers get- 
ting out of "copy," — which means having nothing 
to do. 

Now comes the conference with the business 
manager, — one of the important things of the 
day. From this the editor learns the state of the 
transient advertising, which varies literally by 
scores of columns, according to the w^eather, the 
season, and a dozen other circumstances. He 
decides then upon the size of his paper, — whether 
it shall be of four pages, six, or eight, or even more. 

Of course some great news event, like the death 
of the President, the sinking of an ocean steam- 
ship with heavy loss of life, or some other exciting 
occurrence, would also dictate an enlargement of 



Industries of To-Day 



the paper; but as a rule it depends upon the 
advertising, and is settled at the close of business 
hours. 

This decision is not wholly final. Advertising 
in bulk, or some extraordinary happening, may 
come as late as midnight to render an increase 
of pages necessary. After midnight it would be 
very difficult to make the change, because there 
would not be time in the press room to wet the 
paper and make other needful preparations. 

At six o'clock, or as soon as he learns about the 
advertising, the rnanaging editor begins to shape 
his paper. He knows now how much space he 
has, and he proceeds to allot it among the depart- 
ments, — so much for general telegraphic news, 
so much for local, for political, for foreign, for 
markets, and the like. Of the hundred and more 
offers of special dispatches, perhaps thirty are 
accepted, perhaps sixty, as the demands of the 
paper dictate. The answer usually limits the 
amount of matter to be sent and is stated in hun- 
dreds of words. At this time, too, such instruc- 
tions as are necessary are wired to the regular 
correspondents at Washington and other points 
in America. Orders sent to cable correspondents 

[134] 



The Morning Paper 



in London or Paris must have been dispatched 
hours before, as it is now nearly midnight in 
western Europe. 

At about half past six the editor is able to think 
of dinner. He has a talk with the night editor, 










'•"■;.. J 







-H. v« ^ ^ 



who has just arrived, ^ advising with him as to 
what has been done, what things to expand, what 
matters to keep down, — and then goes out. This 
intermission for dinner usually lasts until half past 
nine. It may be extended; quite as often it is 
abridged. Such as it is, it is the only time in the 

[135] 



Industries of To-Day 



whole day that the managing editor has with his 
family or at his club. 

When he returns to the editorial rooms, between 
nine and ten, the paper has begun to shape itself. 
He is now able to see what the creature will be 
like. Some of the special telegrams have come 
in. The revised editorial proofs and proofs of a 
portion of the news articles are on his desk. 

He discovers that some of the dispatches he has 
ordered are useless ; a column of city news he had 
counted upon has failed owing to the refusal of 
some man to be interviewed ; a letter has appeared 
in Boston which will compel the alteration of one 
of the editorial articles, and the leader writer who 
remains at the office for such emergencies is called 
in and notified. 

On the other hand, some great event — a rail- 
road collision, the explosion of a ferryboat, a 
European sensation — may have loomed up on 
the horizon, demanding attention and space and 
altering the relative importance of everything else 
in the paper. All these and a hundred other 
unlooked-for contingencies springing up on every 
side about him he must meet as they arise, 
deciding yes or no on the instant. 

[136] 



The Morning Paper 



So midnight comes and the great task ap- 
proaches completion. The editor has been read- 
ing proofs, writing or dictating short editorial 
paragraphs on late news items, hearing verbal 
reports, keeping his finger on the pulse of every 
division in the establishment. He begins now the 
final work by " making up " the editorial page. 

This may mean merely the sending to the fore- 
man of the composing room a schedule giving the 
editorial articles in the order in which they must 
come. But if the managing editor is a practical 
man, he spends more or less of his time in the 
composing room looking over the type in the 
forms and dictating the details of arrangement. 

If it is an important night, with special features 
in the paper, he may remain until three o'clock, or 
even until the paper goes to press. If matters are 
going smoothly, he has a five minutes' talk with 
the night editor at one o'clock or thereabout, — 
telling him what articles to display on the first 
page, what things are of the most importance, and 
what can be left out, — and then goes home. 

A reasonably busy day, you say, and there are 
seven of them in every week. 

Harold Frederic. 

[137] 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



0^029 933 8915 



